Sample Letters » Famous

love letter by Franz Kafka

admin — Tue, 08 May 2007 21:46:36 +0000

FrÃ¤ulein Felice!

I am now
going to ask you a favor which sounds quite crazy, and which I should regard as
such, were I the one to receive the letter. It is also the very greatest test
that even the kindest person could be put to. Well, this is it:

Write to
me only once a week, so that your letter arrives on Sunday — for I cannot
endure your daily letters, I am incapable of enduring them. For instance, I
answer one of your letters, then lie in bed in apparent calm, but my heart beats
through my entire body and is conscious only of you. I belong to you; there is
really no other way of expressing it, and that is not strong enough. But for
this very reason I don’t want to know what you are wearing; it confuses me so
much that I cannot deal with life; and that’s why I don’t want to know that you
are fond of me. If I did, how could I, fool that I am, go on sitting in my
office, or here at home, instead of leaping onto a train with my eyes shut and
opening them only when I am with you? Oh, there is a sad, sad reason for not
doing so. To make it short: My health is only just good enough for myself alone,
not good enough for marriage, let alone fatherhood. Yet when I read your letter,
I feel I could overlook even what cannot possibly be overlooked.

If only
I had your answer now! And how horribly I torment you, and how I compel you, in
the stillness of your room, to read this letter, as nasty a letter as has ever
lain on your desk! Honestly, it strikes me sometimes that I prey like a spectre
on your felicitous name! If only I had mailed Saturday’s letter, in which I
implored you never to write to me again, and in which I gave a similar promise.
Oh God, what prevented me from sending that letter? All would be well. But is a
peaceful solution possible now? Would it help if we wrote to each other only
once a week? No, if my suffering could be cured by such means it would not be
serious. And already I foresee that I shan’t be able to endure even the Sunday
letters. And so, to compensate for Saturday’s lost opportunity, I ask you with
what energy remains to me at the end of this letter: If we value our lives, let
us abandon it all.

Did I think of signing myself Dein? No, nothing could
be more false. No, I am forever fettered to myself, that’s what I am, and that’s
what I must try to live with.

Franz
11 November, 1912

Franz Kafka (1883 – 1924) worked for
much of his life as an official in an insurance company. His extrordinary works
of fiction were written largely in his spare time and many of his novels were
published after his death from tuberculosis. Kafka first met Felice Bauer in
1912; for five years they pursued a tempestuous and ultimately unfulfilled love
affair.

love letter by James Joyce

admin — Tue, 08 May 2007 21:45:44 +0000

My dear Nora,

It has just struck me. I came in at half past
eleven. Since then I have been sitting in an easy chair like a fool. I could do
nothing. I hear nothing but your voice. I am like a fool hearing you call me
‘Dear.’ I offended two men today by leaving them coolly. I wanted to hear your
voice, not theirs.

When I am with you I leave aside my contemptuous,
suspicious nature. I wish I felt your head on my shoulder. I think I will go to
bed.

I have been a half-hour writing this thing. Will you write something
to me? I hope you will. How am I to sign myself? I won’t sign anything at all,
because I don’t know what to sign myself.

James Joyce
15 August,
1904

Famous love letter by Gustave Flaubert

admin — Tue, 08 May 2007 21:44:47 +0000

August 15, 1846

I will cover you with love
when next I see you, with caresses, with ecstasy. I want to gorge yu with
all the joys of the flesh, so that you faint and die. I want you to be
amazed by me, and to confess to
yourself that you had never even dreamed of
such transports… When you are old, I want you to recall those few hours,
I want your dry bones to quiver with joy when you think of them.

Gustave
Flaubert, famous French writer, to his wife Louise Colet.

Famous love letter by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

admin — Tue, 08 May 2007 21:44:08 +0000

My letters will have shown you how lovely I am. I don’t dine at Court, I see
few people, and take my walks alone, and at every beautiful spot I wish you were
there.

I can’t help loving you more than is good for me; I shall feel all the
happier when I see you again. I am always conscious of my nearness to you, your
presence never leaves me. In you I have a measure for every woman, for everyone;
in your love a measure for all that is to be. Not in the sense that the rest of
the world seems obscure tome, on the contrary, your love makes it clear; I see
quite clearly what men are like and what they plan, wish, do and enjoy; I don’t
grudge them what they have, and comparing is a secret joy to me, possessing as I
do such an imperishable treasure.

You in your household must feel as I often do in my affairs; we often don’t
notice objects simply because we don’t choose to look at them, but things
acquire an interest as soon as we see clearly the way they are related to each
other. For we always like to join in, and the good man takes pleasure in
arranging, putting in order and furthering the right and its peaceful rule.
Adieu, you whom I love a thousand times.

June 17, 1784

Love Letter by Victor Hugo

admin — Tue, 08 May 2007 21:43:29 +0000

To Adele Foucher

My dearest,
When two souls, which have sought each other
for,
however long in the throng, have finally found each other …a union,
fiery and pure as they themselves are… begins on earth and continues forever
in heaven.

This union is love, true love, … a religion, which deifies the
loved one, whose life comes from devotion and passion, and for which the
greatest sacrifices are the sweetest delights.

This is the love which you inspire in me… Your soul is made to
love with the purity and passion of angels; but perhaps it can only love another
angel, in which case I must tremble with apprehension.

Yours forever,
Victor Hugo (1821)

Honore de Balzac, French writer, to Evelina Hanska, a Polish countess

admin — Tue, 08 May 2007 21:42:58 +0000

My beloved angel,

I am
nearly mad about you, as much as one can be mad: I cannot bring together two
ideas that you do not interpose yourself between them.

I can no longer
think of anything but you. In spite of myself, my imagination carries me
to you. I grasp you, I kiss you, I caress you, a thousand of the most
amorous caresses take possession of me.

As for my heart, there you will
always be – very much so. I have a delicious sense of you there. But
my God, what is to become of me, if you have deprived me of my reason?
This is a monomania which, this morning, terrifies me.

I rise up every
moment saying to myself, “Come, I am going there!” Then I sit down again, moved
by the sense of my obligations. There is a frightful conflict. This
is not life. I have never before been like that. You have devoured
everything.

I feel foolish and happy as soon as I think of you. I
whirl round in a delicious dream in which in one instant I live a thousand
years. What a horrible situation!

Overcome with love, feeling love in
every pore, living only for love, and seeing oneself consumed by griefs, and
caught in a thousand spiders’ threads.

O, my darling Eva, you did not
know it. I picked up your card. It is there before me, and I talk to
you as if you were there. I see you, as I did yesterday, beautiful,
astonishingly beautiful.

Yesterday, during the whole evening, I said to
myself “she is mine!” Ah! The angels are not as happy in Paradise as I was
yesterday!

Honore de Balzac
Sunday 19th June 1836

Love Letter by Napolean Bonaparte

admin — Tue, 08 May 2007 21:41:03 +0000

I wake filled with thoughts of you. Your portrait and the
intoxicating evening which we spent yesterday have left my senses in turmoil.
Sweet, incomparable Josephine, what a strange effect you have on my heart! Are
you angry? Do I see you looking sad? Are you worried?… My soul aches with
sorrow, and there can be no rest for you lover; but is there still more in store
for me when, yielding to the profound feelings which overwhelm me, I draw from
your lips, from your heart a love which consumes me with fire? Ah! it was last
night that I fully realized how false an image of you your portrait
gives!

You are leaving at noon; I shall see you in three
hours.

Until then, mio dolce amor, a thousand kisses; but give me none in
return, for they set my blood on fire.

Paris,
December 1795

Love Letter by Ludwig van Beethoven

admin — Tue, 08 May 2007 21:40:27 +0000

My angel, my all, my very
self — only a few words today and at that with your pencil — not till tomorrow
will my lodgings be definitely determined upon — what a useless waste of time.
Why this deep sorrow where necessity speaks — can our love endure except
through sacrifices — except through not demanding everything — can you change
it that you are not wholly mine, I not wholly thine?

Oh, God! look out
into the beauties of nature and comfort yourself with that which must be — love
demands everything and that very justly — that it is with me so far as you are
concerned, and you with
me. If we were wholly united you would feel the pain
of it as little as I!

Now a quick change to things internal from things
external. We shall surely see each other; moreover, I cannot communicate to you
the observations I have made during the last few days touching my own life — if
our hearts were always close together I would make none of the kind. My heart is
full of many things to say to you – Ah! — there are moments when I feel that
speech is nothing after all — cheer up — remain my true, only treasure, my all
as I am yours; the gods must send us the rest that which shall be best for
us.

Your faithful,
Ludwig
July 6, 1806

Love Letter by Lewis Carroll

admin — Tue, 08 May 2007 21:39:26 +0000

Christ Church, Oxford,
October 28, 1876

My 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 someday 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

from John Keats, to his darling

admin — Tue, 08 May 2007 21:35:29 +0000

25 College Street

My dearest Girl,

This moment I have set myself to copy some verses out fair. I cannot proceed with any degree of content. I must write you a line or two and see if that will assist in dismissing you from my Mind for ever so short a time. Upon my Soul I can think of nothing else – The time is passed when I had power to advise and warn you again[s]t the unpromising morning of my Life – My love has made me selfish. I cannot exist without you – I am forgetful of every thing but seeing you again – my Life seems to stop there – I see no further. You have absorb’d me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I was dissolving – I should be exquisitely miserable without the hope of soon seeing you. I should be afraid to separate myself far from you. My sweet Fanny, will your heart never change? My love, will it? I have no limit now to my love – You note came in just here – I cannot be happier away from you – ‘T is richer than an Argosy of Pearles. Do not threat me even in jest. I have been astonished that Men could die Martyrs for religion – I have shudder’d at it – I shudder no more – I could be martyr’d for my Religion – Love is my religion – I could die for that – I could die for you. My Creed is Love and you are its only tenet – You have ravish’d me away by a Power I cannot resist: and yet I could resist till I saw you; and even since I have seen you I have endeavoured often “to reason against the reasons of my Love.” I can do that no more – the pain would be too great – My Love is selfish – I cannot breathe without you.

Yours for ever
John Keats