Vintage French Postcards & Famous Love Letters

Good morning, on July 7

Though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved, now and then joyfully, then sadly, waiting to learn whether or not fate will hear us - I can live only wholly with you or not at all - Yes, I am resolved to wander so long away from you until I can fly to your arms and say that I am really at home with you, and can send my soul enwrapped in you into the land of spirits - Yes, unhappily it must be so - You will be the more contained since you know my fidelity to you. No one else can ever possess my heart - never - never - Oh God, why must one be parted from one whom one so loves. And yet my life in V is now a wretched life - Your love makes me at once the happiest and the unhappiest of men - At my age I need a steady, quiet life - can that be so in our connection? My angel, I have just been told that the mail coach goes every day - therefore I must close at once so that you may receive the letter at once - Be calm, only by a calm consideration of our existence can we achieve our purpose to live together - Be calm - love me - today - yesterday - what tearful longings for you - you - you - my life - my all - farewell. Oh continue to love me - never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved.

ever thine
ever mine
ever ours

This & 2 other love letters were found in Beethoven's desk after he died. They were not addressed to anybody so it is impossible to know who he was writing to, but historians feel they were written to a married woman who he loved dearly, and who was leaving the city at the time the letters were written.

This next letter is written by Napoleon Bonaparte to his beautiful wife, Josephine, just prior to their 1796 wedding, it shows surprising tenderness and emotion from the future emperor of France.

Paris, December 1795

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.

To Robert Browning:

And now listen to me in turn. You have touched me more profoundly than I thought even you could have touched me - my heart was full when you came here today. Henceforward I am yours for everything....

- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Let's be brave & write a love letter to our loves? Let's take out a pen & some crisp, white paper & truly write what our heart is feeling without the fear of it not being good enough. I don't believe that Hallmark can convey our true self's better then we can. Let's imagine that 100 years from now, someone will be reading our love letters & from there content will know how profound our love must have been to have been willing to put our souls so exposed onto paper. Then let's fold it up, add a drop of sealing wax & know there is no greater gift then the gift of something given truly from the heart!