- Read more |\u00a0In their own words: 6 of history\u2019s most fascinating letters<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
What we can say for certain, is that from these early examples sprang a written art which has been treasured for centuries since.<\/p>\n
In a world transformed by the digital age, writing a letter to a loved one has never been quite so romantic. With that in mind, here is some inspiration to help you from figures in history, so you can craft a love letter that will warrant its own place in the history books\u2026
1<\/span>How to begin a love letter<\/h3>\n<\/div>
How do I love thee? Let me\u2026 Wait, what if I can\u2019t count the ways?<\/em><\/p>\n
Struggling to begin your love letter? The predicament of loving someone so much that you can\u2019t describe it is summarised no better than in Jane Austen<\/a>\u2019s Emma<\/em>. \u201cIf I loved you less,\u201d Mr Knightley professes to the eponymous character, \u201cI might be able to talk about it more.\u201d<\/p>\n
- On the podcast | Historical literature podcast episodes<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
This issue transcends fiction. It\u2019s even been experienced by a US President \u2013 George Herbert Walker Bush. Whilst stationed overseas as a Navy pilot during the Second World War, he wrote many letters to his wife-to-be, Barbara.<\/p>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>US President George HW Bush and Lady Barbara Bush on the South Lawn of the White House, Washington DC, October 23, 1992. (Photo by Ron Sachs\/CNP\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n Most of these were lost, but one of the few letters that did survive which shows that when words fail you, it can be better to simply say so:<\/p>\n
\u201cThis should be a very easy letter to write \u2013 words should come easily and in short it should be simple for me to tell you how desperately happy I was to open the paper and see the announcement of our engagement, but somehow I can\u2019t possibly say all in a letter I should like to. I love you, precious, with all my heart and to know that you love me means my life. How often I have thought about the immeasurable joy that will be ours some day. How lucky our children will be to have a mother like you\u2026\u201d<\/em>
2<\/span>Confront a long-distance relationship<\/h3>\n<\/div>
Are you far away from a loved one? You\u2019re not the only one to have experienced the woes that come with long distance. Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald\u2019s marriage to Zelda is often remembered for its turbulent nature, though it wasn\u2019t always so. Their earlier days together were filled with adoration, and they struggled greatly when apart.<\/p>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda, at their home in Dellwood, Minnesota. (Photo by \u00a9 Minnesota Historical Society\/CORBIS\/Corbis via Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n This happiness sadly ended when Zelda was admitted to the Les Rives de Prangins Clinic in Switzerland for serious mental ill health. At this time, Fitzgerald was contending with alcohol addiction, and the pair\u2019s afflictions made their written exchanges far more scornful.<\/p>\n
However, in viewing their earlier letters, we catch a glimpse of a relationship that was joyful:<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy is there happiness and comfort and excitement where you are and nowhere else in the world?\u201d<\/em> Fitzgerald pens.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour photograph is all I have,\u201d<\/em> Zelda replies, \u201cit is with me from the morning when I wake up with a frantic half dream about you to the last moment when I think of you and of death at night.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
- Read more | A history of Valentine\u2019s Day celebrations \u2013 from fertility festivals to the first cards<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
Zelda wrote other missives, which provide warm details of her feelings towards Fitzgerald:<\/p>\n
\u201cI look down the tracks and see you coming \u2013 and out of every haze & mist your darling rumpled trousers are hurrying to me \u2013 Without you, dearest dearest I couldn\u2019t see or hear or feel or think \u2013 or live \u2013 I love you so and I\u2019m never in all our lives going to let us be apart another night. It\u2019s like begging for mercy of a storm or killing Beauty or growing old, without you. I want to kiss you so \u2013 and in the back where your dear hair starts and your chest \u2013 I love you \u2013 and I can\u2019t tell you how much \u2013 To think that I\u2019ll die without your knowing \u2013 Goofo, you\u2019ve got to try to feel how much I do \u2013 how inanimate I am when you\u2019re gone \u2013 I can\u2019t even hate these damnable people \u2013 Nobodys got any right to live but us \u2013 and they\u2019re dirtying up our world and I can\u2019t hate them because I want you so \u2013 Come Quick \u2013 Come Quick to me \u2013 I could never do without you if you hated me and were covered with sores like a leper \u2013 if you ran away with another woman and starved me and beat me \u2013 I still would want you I know \u2013 Lover, Lover, Darling \u2013 Your Wife.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
And it wasn\u2019t only creatives who recorded the anguish of missing loved ones on paper. Napoleon Bonaparte<\/a>, whilst claiming his place in history as a ruthless military leader, appears to have been far more tender in his personal life.<\/p>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Napoleon and Josephine. (Photo by Apic\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n In a letter he wrote to his first wife, Jos\u00e9phine, translated from French by Henry Foljambe Hall in 1901, he says:<\/p>\n
\u201cEver since I left you, I have been sad. I am only happy when by your side. Ceaselessly I recall your kisses, your tears, your enchanting jealousy; and the charms of the incomparable Jos\u00e9phine keep constantly alight a bright and burning flame in my heart and senses. When, free from every worry, from all business, shall I spend all my moments by your side, to have nothing to do but to love you, and to prove it to you? I shall send your horse, but I am hoping that you will soon be able to rejoin me. I thought I loved you some days ago; but, since I saw you, I feel that I love you even a thousand times more.\u201d<\/em>
3<\/span>Unearth your poetic side<\/h3>\n<\/div>
British writer Oscar Wilde<\/a> fell hard for Oxford undergraduate Lord Alfred Douglas in June 1891, who he was introduced to by a friend, Lionel Johnson.<\/p>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Irish dramatist Oscar Wilde with Lord Alfred Douglas at Oxford, 1893. (Photo by Gillman & Co\/Hulton Archive\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n Wilde and \u2018Bosie\u2019, as he referred to him, were very different, though. Whilst Wilde was non-confrontational, Douglas was fierier. But with fire came passion, a presence made clear by the writers in their letters:<\/p>\n
\u201cMy Own Boy<\/em><\/p>\n
\u201cYour sonnet is quite lovely, and it is a marvel that those red-roseleaf lips of yours should be made no less for the madness of music and song than for the madness of kissing. Your slim gilt soul walks between passion and poetry. I know Hyacinthus, whom Apollo loved so madly, was you in Greek days. Why are you alone in London, and when do you go to Salisbury? Do go there to cool your hands in the grey twilight of Gothic things, and come here whenever you like. It is a lovely place and lacks only you; but go to Salisbury first.<\/em><\/p>\n
\u201cAlways, with undying love,<\/em><\/p>\n
\u201cYours, Oscar\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
In HM Prison Reading, following his sentence, Wilde wrote a 50,000-word letter to Douglas, which became known as De Profundis<\/em> (From the Depths<\/em>). In the first half of the letter, he discusses the two\u2019s relationship and, in the second, a spiritual awakening he experienced during his imprisonment.<\/p>\n
- Read more | Oscar Wilde\u2019s tragic end<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
His exchanges with Douglas prove that there are no limitations when writing a letter to a loved one, especially for the more poetic amongst us.
4<\/span>Reflect on the past<\/h3>\n<\/div>
Musicians Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash were married for over 30 years. The two met when still married to other people, a difficult situation that inspired June\u2019s cowriting of the song Ring of Fire<\/em> with Merle Kilgore.<\/p>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash with their baby son, John Carter Cash, 1970. (Photo by Frank Edwards\/Fotos International\/Archive Photos\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n During their marriage, the couple overcame the turbulence fame, and life, can often bring \u2013 including Johnny\u2019s addictions to drugs and alcohol. Their letters show the devotion that allowed them to survive the difficulties they faced. In a letter, Johnny reflects on their past:<\/p>\n
\u201cHappy Birthday Princess,<\/em><\/p>\n
\u201cWe get old and get used to each other. We think alike.<\/em><\/p>\n
\u201cWe read each other\u2019s minds. We know what the other wants without asking. Sometimes we irritate each other a little bit. Maybe sometimes take each other for granted.<\/em><\/p>\n
\u201cBut once in awhile, like today, I meditate on it and realize how lucky I am to share my life with the greatest woman I ever met. You still fascinate and inspire me.\u201d<\/em>
5<\/span>Make promises for the future<\/h3>\n<\/div>
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>King Henry VIII of England and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. (Photo by Hulton Archive\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n King Henry VIII<\/a>\u2019s marriage to Anne Boleyn<\/a>\u00a0might have been severed, quite literally, but his written professions prior to their union were not short of promises. Anne was not satisfied with being a mistress of the Tudor king; she wanted to be his wife<\/em>.<\/p>\n
- Read more | 5 British castles with romantic histories<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
And, for the woman he dissolved the Catholic church for, it might come as a surprise to discover that Henry was willing to do plenty more:<\/p>\n
\u201cBut if you please to do the office of a true loyal mistress and friend, and to give up yourself body and heart to me, who will be, and have been, your most loyal servant, (if your rigour does not forbid me) I promise you that not only the name shall be given you, but also that I will take you for my only mistress, casting off all others besides you out of my thoughts and affections, and serve you only. I beseech you to give an entire answer to this my rude letter, that I may know on what and how far I may depend. And if it does not please you to answer me in writing, appoint some place where I may have it by word of mouth, and I will go thither with all my heart. No more, for fear of tiring you.\u201d<\/em>
6<\/span>How to end a love letter<\/h3>\n<\/div>
Look no further than Prince Albert<\/a>\u2019s sign off\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n
- Read more | 5 British castles with romantic histories<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
- Read more | Oscar Wilde\u2019s tragic end<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
- Read more | A history of Valentine\u2019s Day celebrations \u2013 from fertility festivals to the first cards<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
- On the podcast | Historical literature podcast episodes<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
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