Text and images Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland
Yesterday I celebrated Valentin's Day by buying myself a book. I know I don't need Valentine's Day to buy a book, book buying is something I do all the time, but this was a very special one; Love Letters of Great Men.....from Pliny the Younger, via King Henry VIII and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to Lord Byron and Gustave Flaubert......
Love letters from more than 40 femous men.
About 2000 years ago Pliny the Younger wrote to his wife:
You will not believe what a longing for you possesses me. The chief cause of this is my love; and then we have not grown used to be apart. So it comes to pass that I lie awake a great part of the night, thinking of you.......
Lord Byron (1788-1824) to the Countess Guicioli in August 1819
My dearest Teresa. I have read this book in your garden. My love, you were absent, or else I could not have read it. It is a favourite book of yours, and the writer was a favourite friend of mine. You will not understand these English words, and other will not understand them....which is the reason I have not scrawled them in Italian. But you will recognise the handwriting of him who passionately loved you, and you will divine that, over a book which was yours, he could only think of love.
John Keats (1795 - 1981) to Fanny Brawne in 1820
....The last of your kisses was ever the sweetest, the last smile the brightest; the last movement the gracefullest. When you pass'd my window home yesterday, I was fill'd with as much admiration as if I had seen you for the first time.....
And then this lovely one from Honoré de Balzac (1799 - 1850) to the countess Ewelina Hanska
Oh! how I should have liked to remain half a day kneeling at your feet with my head on your lap, dreaming beautiful dreams, telling you my thoughts with langour, with rapture, sometimes not speaking at all, but pressing my lips to your gown!.....
.....oh sweet love.....
Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885) to Adéle Foucher in January 1820
A few words from you, my beloved Adéle, have again changed the state of my mind. Yes, you can do anything with me, and tomorrow, I should be dead indeed if the gentle sound of your voice, the tender pressure of your adored lips, do not suffice to recall the life to my body.
Terje and I don't often write letters to each other, though we do write emails when I travel, or rather did, now we mostly speak by Skype.
I have a few of his early letters to me, written when we studied at different places. They are treasures. My most cherished treasure though is to have Terje there, day by day, every day, at my side. A hug, a kiss, the meeting of eyes, the sharing of smiles.
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Photos: this and that from my collection. Two favorite ones from Paris taken by Marta.
