Britain's most romantic letter-writers

 

 

By Florence Waters

 

Contrary to expectation perhaps, the poet Rupert Brooke's greatest talent was to distinguish his letters from his poetry, keeping his words spontaneous, as if they were spoken:

 

To Catherine Nesbitt, 1913: 

""Oh, but - it's the terrifyingly glad part of it - you're not only goddess; you're also child... Little child, I will kiss you till I kill you."

 

But he also knew how to reign in emotion when need be. It seemed that he couldn't stand gushing praise, even in the written hand of his own love:

 

"Do not answer lengthily," he writes at the end, "...but answer points of fact briefly. It's a practical world."

 

 

You must admire Robert Devereaux's sheer cheek in this saucy and confident letter to Queen Eilzabeth I. The 21-year-old Earl of Essex was Elizabeth's favourite courtier at the time that it was written in October 1591. A decade later he would be tried for treason and executed by the same Queen.

 

"Most fair, most dear, and most excellent sovereign... At my return I will humbly beseech your Majesty that no cause but a great action of your own may draw me out of your sight. For the two windows of your privy chamber shall be the poles of my sphere where, as long as your majesty will please to have me, I am fixed unmovable."

 

Horatio Nelson's last letter to his mistress Lady Emma Hamilton, written from the deck of the 'Victory' during the Battle of Trafalgar on 19 October 1805, is unfinished. It is said to be among the most evocative documents in the British Library's collection.

 

"May the God of Battles crown my endeavours with success, at all events I will take care that my name shall ever be most dear to you and Horatia [their daughter], both of whom I love as much as my own life. And as my last writing before the battle will be to you, so I hope in God that I shall live to finish my letter after the battle."

 

The letter was taken to Lady Hamilton, who has written in her own writing at the end of the script: "Oh miserable wretched Emma / Og glorious & happy Nelson."

 

Charles Dickens' marriage with Catherine Hogarth was a notoriously unhappy one. After she had ten of his children, he left her for a much younger mistress.

 

This poignant letter was written three weeks into his engagement to Catherine, in May 1835, and shows that, even then, he had doubts about their compatibility. It is not an obviously romantic letter, but is reveals his deep sensitivity. It is full of emotion and lovely for all its honesty and loyalty.

 

"The sudden and uncalled-for coldness with which you treated me... both surprised me and deeply hurt me...

 

"...I am not angry but I am hurt, for the second time... If you knew the intensity of the feeling which has led me to forget all my friends and pursuits to spend my days at your side; if you knew but half of the anxiety with which I watched your recent illness, the joy with which I hailed your recovery, and the eagerness with which I could promote your happiness, you could more readily understand the extent of the pain so easily inflicted, but so difficult to be forgotten."

 

Desperation does not get the better of eloquence in Margery Brews' letter to John Paston III (Feb 1477), addressed to "my right well beloved Valentine". 

It is the most romantic letter which survives from the 'Paston Letters', the most famous surviving correspondences from the fifteenth century. The daughter of Sir Thomas Brews, Margery was forbidden from marrying John over a dowry dispute.

 

"And if it pleases you to know my welfare, I am not in good health either of body or heart, nor shall I be till I hear from you for there knows no creature what pain I endure... My heart bids me ever more to love you, truly over all earthly thing."

 

The actor Sir Ralph Richardson was a master of brevity and anticipation: 

To his wife Meriel Forbes (1964-7): 

"Dearest Ferret, This is to wish you many happy returns - if I am unable to meet you - the room is 207. Shall be back about 5 o'clock I expect. Ask the people to put the beds together. R." Telegraph