ART & Thoughts
Love Letters
Illicit Love Letters: Albert Camus and Maria Casares
The romance of Camus and Casares is richer, if not sadder, when considered alongside the narratives of each of their work. There is an eerie doubling of life and art. Absurdity is the only certainty, and this is confirmed over and over again by coincidence and chance. The two first met on June 6, 1944, the storied … Continue reading
Partout où il n’y aura rien, lisez que je vous aime: Denis Diderot
IV Paris, le 10 juillet. J’écris sans voir. Je suis venu ; je voulais vous baiser la main et m’en retourner. Je m’en retournerai sans cette récompense ; mais ne serai-je pas assez récompensé si je vous ai montré combien je vous aime ? Il est neuf heures, je vous écris que je vous aime. Je veux du … Continue reading
All love letters are Ridiculous: Fernando Pessoa
All love letters are Ridiculous. They wouldn’t be love letters if they weren’t Ridiculous. In my time I also wrote love letters Equally, inevitably Ridiculous. Love letters, if there’s love, Must be Ridiculous. But in fact Only those who’ve never written Love letters Are Ridiculous. If only I could go back To when I wrote … Continue reading
Ripenso il tuo sorriso: Eugenio Montale / Boris Kniaseff
“Ripenso il tuo sorriso, ed è per me un’acqua limpida scorta per avventura tra le petraie d’un greto, esiguo specchio in cui guardi un’ellera i suoi corimbi; e su tutto l’abbraccio di un bianco cielo quieto. Codesto è il mio ricordo; non saprei dire, o lontano, se dal tuo volto si esprime libera un’anima ingenua, … Continue reading
Frida Kahlo : An Intimate Self Portrait / Love letters
“Understanding the glances of our closed eyes. You are here, intangible and you are all the universe which I shape into the space of my room. Your absence springs trembling in the ticking of the clock, in the pulse of light; you breathe through the mirror. From you to my hands, I caress your entire … Continue reading
Letters to Véra – Vladimir Nabokov
He wrote her: “Yes, I need you, my fairy-tale. Because you are the only person I can talk with about the shade of a cloud, about the song of a thought — and about how, when I went out to work today and looked a tall sunflower in the face, it smiled at me with … Continue reading
The Love Letters of Victor Hugo to Adele Foucher
1820 Saturday Evening, January, 1820. A few words from you, my beloved Adèle, have again changed my state of mind. Yes, you can do anything with me; and to-morrow, were I even dead, the sweet tones of your voice, the tender pressure of your lips, would call me back to life again. How differently I shall feel as … Continue reading
The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens
The Invisible Woman She is the shadowy figure in Dickens’s life, the woman who shared the last thirteen years before his early death. His biographers tried to erase her, their letters to each other were burned, but still the story of Charles Dickens and Ellen Ternan could not be obliterated from history. Ellen Lawless Ternan … Continue reading
Letters to Milena Jesenská : Franz Kafka – Love letters
Meran, May 1920 Dear Frau Milena (yes, this heading is becoming burdensome, although it is something to cling to in this uncertain world, like a crutch for sick people; but it’s no sign of recovery when the crutches grow to be a burden), I have never lived among Germans. German is my mother tongue and … Continue reading
Letters to Lou Andreas Salome – Rainer Maria Rilke
“I think of you at any time of the day and my worried thoughts accompany all your steps. The slightest breathe on your forehead is a kiss from my lips and each dream speaks to you with my voice. My love is like a coat wrapped around you to protect and warm you up.” Rilke … Continue reading
Two English Poems to a woman- Jorge Luis Borges
“I inscribe this book to I.J.: English, innumerable and an Angel. Also: I offer her that kernel of myself that I have saved, somehow – the central heart that deals not in words, traffics not with dreams and is untouched by time, by joy, by adversities” TWO ENGLISH POEMS Por Jorge Luis Borges (1934) I. The … Continue reading
Tonight everything hurts… Anaïs Nin – Henry Miller / Georgia O’Keeffe
[Henry:] “ Tonight everything hurts, not only the separation, but this terrible hunger of body and mind for you which every day you are increasing, stirring more and more. I don’t know what I am writing. Feel me holding you as I have never held you before, more deeply, more sadly, more desperately, more passionately.” September … Continue reading
Life with Gustav Mahler
Life with Gustav Mahler (1901 – 1911) On 7 November 1901, at the house of her friend Berta Zuckerkandl, Alma met celebrated conductor Gustav Mahler who, as Director of the Vienna Court Opera, held one of the most powerful positions in the world of music. Alma Schindler, 1900 Gustav Mahler en route to the Vienna … Continue reading
Gustav Mahler and Natalie Bauer-Lechner
Though musicologists who specialize in Gustav Mahler have long taken the memoirs of his wife, Alma, with a grain of salt, most of them have accepted her portrait of him as a fairly chaste ascetic who had few romances before he met her. Now, two scholars say a recently discovered letter from a Mahler confidante — and … Continue reading
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