One reason for writing and reading poetry is that a poem is like a condensed emotion – a few words, in a constrained form, thereby compacting, and intensifying, the ideas and images. It packs a punch. The same can be said of love letters – or love emails, or love cards, or love texts. These, because they are written with a specific intention, and usually aren’t long, can be timelessly touching and beautiful.
Because February the 14th is Valentine’s Day – and I won’t be a grinch and explain after which martyr the day is named and why – I thought I’d share a few very moving love letters that I’ve come across – real letters, from real people, some of them famous.
With love from me to you
As far as I could figure it out, these letters are correctly attributed to the writers; some are in archives, some are in published diaries or biographies, and one has even been sold at auction. There are many other wonderful love letters, but they cannot be traced back to their authors.
With the letters I have listed, below, bear in mind that love takes many forms, and that each letter was specifically written to a single other person, under specific, sometimes desperate, circumstances. But since love is love, and humans are humans, even these individualistic letters will resonate with some readers.
Once you’ve read them, I suggest you follow the advice of writer Shaun Usher:
“Take ten minutes out of your day. Find a piece of paper, rescue your last remaining pen from the cat, and write to someone, if only to let them know that you are thinking of them. There’s a chance, albeit slim, that you may even get a reply.”
– Shaun Usher, 2020, in Letters of Note – Cats, Foreword, published 2009
Real love letters
From Eric Clapton to Pattie Boyd (“Layla”), 1970:
(Photo: Pattie Boyd and Eric Clapton, from The Guardian)
Leonard Cohen, to Marianne Ihlen, his muse, 2016:
“Well Marianne, it’s come to this time when we are really so old and our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon. Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine. And you know that I’ve always loved you for your beauty and your wisdom, but I don’t need to say anything more about that because you know all about that. But now, I just want to wish you a very good journey. Goodbye old friend. Endless love, see you down the road.”
Katherine Mansfield to her brother, Leslie Beauchamp (left), 1915:
“This is not a letter. It is only my arms around you for a quick minute.”
Albert Camus to Maria Casarés, 1949:
“I’m waiting for you, I’m waiting for the evening calm, I’m waiting for our time, the oblique light, this pause between day and night. Peace will come, surely. But I can imagine no other peace than that of our two bodies bound together, of our gaze given over to each other – I have no other homeland but you.”
(Photo: Albert Camus and Maria Casarés, from The Paris Review)
Ludwig van Beethoven, who never married, to his “Immortal Beloved”, an unnamed person, July 7, 1812:
“Angel, I just hear that the post goes out every day — and must close therefore, so that you get the L. at once. Be calm — love me — today — yesterday.
What longing in tears for you — You — my Life — my All — farewell. Oh, go on loving me — never doubt the faithfullest heart
Of your beloved
L
Ever thine.
Ever mine.
Ever ours.”
The Immortal Beloved addressed in this letter could have been Antonie Brentano, Julie Guicciardi, Therese Malfatti or Josephine Brunsvik (probably the latter, Josephine Brunswick).
Is this not the most lovely, tender, heartfelt letter?
From Johnny Cash, in his own handwriting, to his wife, June Carter Cash, in 1994, on her 65th birthday.
Read the whole of the next letter to understand what it actually is…
Frida Kahlo to Diego Riviera, 1953:
Mexico,
1953
My dear Mr. Diego,
I’m writing this letter from a hospital room before I am admitted into the operating theatre. They want me to hurry, but I am determined to finish writing first, as I don’t want to leave anything unfinished. Especially now that I know what they are up to. They want to hurt my pride by cutting a leg off. When they told me it would be necessary to amputate, the news didn’t affect me the way everybody expected. No, I was already a maimed woman when I lost you, again, for the umpteenth time maybe, and still I survived.
I am not afraid of pain and you know it. It is almost inherent to my being, although I confess that I suffered, and a great deal, when you cheated on me, every time you did it, not just with my sister but with so many other women. How did they let themselves be fooled by you? You believe I was furious about Cristina, but today I confess that it wasn’t because of her. It was because of me and you. First of all because of me, since I’ve never been able to understand what you looked and look for, what they give you that I couldn’t. Let’s not fool ourselves, Diego, I gave you everything that is humanly possible to offer and we both know that. But still, how the hell do you manage to seduce so many women when you’re such an ugly son of a bitch?
The reason why I’m writing is not to accuse you of anything more than we’ve already accused each other of in this and however many more bloody lives. It’s because I’m having a leg cut off (damned thing, it got what it wanted in the end). I told you I’ve counted myself as incomplete for a long time, but why the fuck does everybody else need to know about it too? Now my fragmentation will be obvious for everyone to see, for you to see… That’s why I’m telling you before you hear it on the grapevine. Forgive my not going to your house to say this in person, but given the circumstances and my condition, I’m not allowed to leave the room, not even to use the bathroom. It’s not my intention to make you or anyone else feel pity, and I don’t want you to feel guilty. I’m writing to let you know I’m releasing you, I’m amputating you. Be happy and never seek me again. I don’t want to hear from you, I don’t want you to hear from me. If there is anything I’d enjoy before I die, it’d be not having to see your fucking horrible bastard face wandering around my garden.
That is all, I can now go to be chopped up in peace.
Good bye from somebody who is crazy and vehemently in love with you,
Your Frida
(Photo: Frida Kahlo and Diego Riviera, from Art Gallery of NSW, image courtesy of Throckmorton Fine Art, Inc.)
A desperate love letter
Letter from Emma Hauck to her husband, Mark Hauck, 1909, Prinzhorn Collection:
Emma Hauck, aged 30, was admitted to the psychiatric hospital at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, on February 7, 1909, having been diagnosed with schizophrenia. She was later transferred to Wiesloch asylum, the facility in which she would pass away eleven years later. After a brief discharge from hospital in 1909, she was readmitted to the asylum and never left. After her death, her hundreds of desperate and unsent letters to her absent husband, Mark, were found. Every page is thick with overlapping text. Some are so condensed as to be illegible, others simply repeat her plea, thousands of times.
This is all she ever wrote:
“Herzensschatzi komm” (“Sweetheart come”)
“komm komm komm,” (“come come come”)
(Source: Letters of Note, by Shaun Usher)
What makes a love letter? Why write them?
Me being an inquisitive person, I was wondering what defines a love letter. Firstly, love letters are letters. They are written intentionally, it’s a dedicated act. You don’t write a love letter sort of accidentally while doing something else. You write it because you have something to say about your love for the other person. You take the trouble and the time to sit down, to deliberately write what you feel, and to send it. This gives love letters meaning. It’s something you make yourself, on purpose.
The medium used for the letter doesn’t matter.
The content, love, does.
It can be handwritten, printed, typed,
even spoken or a voice recording.
It can be on paper, an email, texted, or messaged,
even incorporated into a graphic design or artwork.
It is a letter because it is addressed to a
specific person, and it gets sent, and delivered, to
that person. Like all messages, if it is not sent, or
not received, it is not communicated, and therefore
not a letter, per se.
This is why is it so special to get a love letter. The writer had take the time to think about it, write it, to consider what your reaction might be, and what you would like – or not like – to read, and then send it. And then wait for you to respond. This is important: the writer expects a response.
How does the writer start? With “Dear” or “Hi” or with their special nickname for you? Do they end with xxx‘es or heart emojis, or something more intense like “love you forever and ever, please don’t leave me hanging”? What do you think the writer wants you to think, feel or do?
By these definitions, I have only received three love letters in my life. I have kept all three. They might as well be valuable manuscripts, I treasure them so much. When I read them, I remember the best sides of the people who wrote those words. And I remember, and feel again just for a second, how they saw me when I inspired those emotions.
SEVEN CIRCUMSTANCES 
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