I listened to this short audiobook and my only complaint would be that it clipped along a little too quickly; there was little time to consider the words and phrases that had been selected so carefully by these famous men in writing to their loves. The biographical information on each couple was almost more interesting than the letters themselves. For instance, the eventual suicide pact between Heinrich von Kleist and the terminally ill Henriette Vogel made his letter all the more poignant. (I wish I could find it online to add it here because it was so touching to me.)
In this age of texts and IMs, many young people don't even email each other anymore. I wonder if the age of the love letter has passed, if there will ever again be something as permanent, and especially, I wonder if, by not taking the time to consider and name their feelings, if young people today might not even be aware of the depth of their love, for in a sense, to name is to know.*
A standout from this collection, to me, is George Bernard Shaw's letter to ‘Stella’ Beatrice Campbell. It dispenses with the flowery and romantic language of many of the other letters and seems, somehow, more authentic; the type of letter I would want to receive.
February 27, 1913.To ‘Stella’ Beatrice CampbellI want my rapscallionly fellow vagabond.I want my dark lady. I want my angel -I want my tempter.I want my Freia with her apples.I want the lighter of my seven lamps of beauty, honour,laughter, music, love, life and immortality ... I wantmy inspiration, my folly, my happiness,my divinity, my madness, my selfishness,my final sanity and sanctification,my transfiguration, my purification,my light across the sea,my palm across the desert,my garden of lovely flowers,my million nameless joys,my day’s wage,my night’s dream,my darling andmy star...George Bernard Shaw
This collection ends with a letter from Lewis Carroll to a ten-year-old girl he had befriended. Knowing that he was infatuated with the young girl Alice (who had inspired his famous books), I found this creepy and wondered at its inclusion.
Christ Church, Oxford, October 28, 1876My Dearest Gertrude,—You will be sorry, and surprised, and puzzled, to hear what a queer illness I have had ever since you went. I sent for the doctor, and said, "Give me some medicine. for I'm tired." He said, "Nonsense and stuff! You don't want medicine: go to bed!" I said, "No; it isn't the sort of tiredness that wants bed. I'm tired in the face."He looked a little grave, and said, "Oh, it's your nose that's tired: a person often talks too much when he thinks he knows a great deal." I said, "No, it isn't the nose. Perhaps it's the hair."Then he looked rather grave, and said, "Now I understand: you've been playing too many hairs on the pianoforte." "No, indeed I haven't!" I said, "and it isn't exactly the hair: it's more about the nose and chin."Then he looked a good deal graver, and said, "Have you been walking much on your chin lately?" I said, "No." "Well!" he said, "it puzzles me very much. Do you think it's in the lips?" "Of course!" I said. "That's exactly what it is!"Then he looked very grave indeed, and said, "I think you must have been giving too many kisses." "Well," I said, "I did give one kiss to a baby child, a little friend of mine." "Think again," he said; "are you sure it was only one?" I thought again, and said, "Perhaps it was eleven times." Then the doctor said, "You must not give her any more till your lips are quite rested again." "But what am I to do?" I said, "because you see, I owe her a hundred and eighty-two more."Then he looked so grave that tears ran down his cheeks, and he said, "You may send them to her in a box." Then I remembered a little box that I once bought at Dover, and thought I would some day give it to some little girl or other. So I have packed them all in it very carefully. Tell me if they come safe or if any are lost on the way.Lewis Carroll
*And, as it turns out, I'm not the only one musing romantic on the death of the love letter as this February 14th article explains:
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/02/14/expressing-affairs-of-the-heart-frivolous-emails-texts-have-replaced-the-sappy-love-letter/
