(Source: The Baton, Volumes 2-3, via Marcus Williams; Image: Helen Keller "listening" to the radio, c.1929, via Angelfire.)
93 Seminole Avenue,
Forest Hills, L. I.,
February 2, 1924.
The New York Symphony Orchestra,
New York City.
Dear Friends:
I have the joy of being able to tell you that, though deaf and blind, I spent a glorious hour last night listening over the radio to Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony." I do not mean to say that I "heard" the music in the sense that other people heard it; and I do not know whether I can make you understand how it was possible for me to derive pleasure from the symphony. It was a great surprise to myself. I had been reading in my magazine for the blind of the happiness that the radio was bringing to the sightless everywhere. I was delighted to know that the blind had gained a new source of enjoyment; but I did not dream that I could have any part in their joy. Last night, when the family was listening to your wonderful rendering of the immortal symphony someone suggested that I put my hand on the receiver and see if I could get any of the vibrations. He unscrewed the cap, and I lightly touched the sensitive diaphragm. What was my amazement to discover that I could feel, not only the vibrations, but also the impassioned rhythm, the throb and the urge of the music! The intertwined and intermingling vibrations from different instruments enchanted me. I could actually distinguish the cornets, the roll of the drums, deep-toned violas and violins singing in exquisite unison. How the lovely speech of the violins flowed and plowed over the deepest tones of the other instruments! When the human voice leaped up trilling from the surge of harmony, I recognized them instantly as voices. I felt the chorus grow more exultant, more ecstatic, upcurving swift and flame-like, until my heart almost stood still. The women's voices seemed an embodiment of all the angelic voices rushing in a harmonious flood of beautiful and inspiring sound. The great chorus throbbed against my fingers with poignant pause and flow. Then all the instruments and voices together burst forth—an ocean of heavenly vibration—and died away like winds when the atom is spent, ending in a delicate shower of sweet notes.
Of course, this was not "hearing" but I do know that the tones and harmonies conveyed to me moods of great beauty and majesty. I also sensed, or thought I did, the tender sounds of nature that sing into my hand—swaying reeds and winds and the murmur of streams. I have never been so enraptured before by a multitude of tone-vibrations.
As I listened, with darkness and melody, shadow and sound filling all the room, I could not help remembering that the great composer who poured forth such a flood of sweetness into the world was deaf like myself. I marvelled at the power of his quenchless spirit by which out of his pain he wrought such joy for others—and there I sat, feeling with my hand the magnificent symphony which broke like a sea upon the silent shores of his soul and mine.
Let me thank you warmly for all the delight which your beautiful music has brought to my household and to me. I want also to thank Station WEAF for the joy they are broadcasting in the world.
With kindest regards and best wishes, I am,
Sincerely yours,
(Signed)
HELEN KELLER
* * *
Novelist Doris Lessing passed away yesterday, aged 94, following an impressive career during which she wrote, most notably, The Golden Notebook, won numerous awards for her work, and never minced her words. In 2007, when informed by reporters outside her home that she had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, she famously reacted with an endearing indifference that has since been replayed by thousands. Indeed, she later called winning the award a "bloody disaster." 15 years before that, in 1992, she was offered the chance to become a Dame—an opportunity Lessing, who was brought up in Southern Rhodesia, rejected with the letter below, sent to then-Prime Minister John Major's Principal Private Secretary, Alex Allan.
(Source: University of East Anglia; Image: Doris Lessing, via.)
24th November, 1992
Dear Alex Allan,
I am sorry I did not reply earlier, but I was in the States.
Thank you for offering me this honour: I am very pleased. But for some time now I have been wondering, "But where is this British Empire?" Surely, there isn't one. And now I see that I am not the only one saying the same.
There is something ruritannical about honours given in the name of a non-existent Empire.
And there is another thing. When young I did my best to undo that bit of the British Empire I found myself in: that is, old Southern Rhodesia.
And surely there is something unlikeable about a person, when old, accepting honours from a institution she attacked when young?
And yet...how pleasant to be a dame! I would adore it. Dame of what?
Dame of Britain? Dame of the British Islands? Dame of the British Commonwealth? Dame of ....? Never mind.
Please forgive my churlishness. I am sorry, I really am.
Yours sincerely,
Doris Lessing
* * *
W.E.B. Du Bois was a man of many achievements. In 1895, he became the first African American to earn a Ph.D at Harvard; he co-founded, in 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; his influential 1903 book on race, The Souls of Black Folk, is considered a classic in its field. He was also a tireless civil rights activist. In 1914, his soon-to-be 14-year-old daughter, Yolande, left the family home to study at Bedales School in England. He wrote her the following letter of advice soon after her arrival.
(Source: The Correspondence of W.E.B. Du Bois, Vol. 1: Selections, 1877-1934; Image: W.E.B. Du Bois, his daughter, Yolande, and his wife, Nina in 1901, via Wikimedia.)
New York, October 29, 1914
Dear Little Daughter:
I have waited for you to get well settled before writing. By this time I hope some of the strangeness has worn off and that my little girl is working hard and regularly.
Of course, everything is new and unusual. You miss the newness and smartness of America. Gradually, however, you are going to sense the beauty of the old world: its calm and eternity and you will grow to love it.
Above all remember, dear, that you have a great opportunity. You are in one of the world’s best schools, in one of the world’s greatest modern empires. Millions of boys and girls all over this world would give almost anything they possess to be where you are. You are there by no desert or merit of yours, but only by lucky chance.
Deserve it, then. Study, do your work. Be honest, frank and fearless and get some grasp of the real values of life. You will meet, of course, curious little annoyances. People will wonder at your dear brown and the sweet crinkley hair. But that simply is of no importance and will soon be forgotten. Remember that most folk laugh at anything unusual, whether it is beautiful, fine or not. You, however, must not laugh at yourself. You must know that brown is as pretty as white or prettier and crinkley hair as straight even though it is harder to comb. The main thing is the YOU beneath the clothes and skin—the ability to do, the will to conquer, the determination to understand and know this great, wonderful, curious world. Don’t shrink from new experiences and custom. Take the cold bath bravely. Enter into the spirit of your big bed-room. Enjoy what is and not pine for what is not. Read some good, heavy, serious books just for discipline: Take yourself in hand and master yourself. Make yourself do unpleasant things, so as to gain the upper hand of your soul.
Above all remember: your father loves you and believes in you and expects you to be a wonderful woman.
I shall write each week and expect a weekly letter from you.
Lovingly yours,
Papa
Dear Little Daughter:
I have waited for you to get well settled before writing. By this time I hope some of the strangeness has worn off and that my little girl is working hard and regularly.
Of course, everything is new and unusual. You miss the newness and smartness of America. Gradually, however, you are going to sense the beauty of the old world: its calm and eternity and you will grow to love it.
Above all remember, dear, that you have a great opportunity. You are in one of the world’s best schools, in one of the world’s greatest modern empires. Millions of boys and girls all over this world would give almost anything they possess to be where you are. You are there by no desert or merit of yours, but only by lucky chance.
Deserve it, then. Study, do your work. Be honest, frank and fearless and get some grasp of the real values of life. You will meet, of course, curious little annoyances. People will wonder at your dear brown and the sweet crinkley hair. But that simply is of no importance and will soon be forgotten. Remember that most folk laugh at anything unusual, whether it is beautiful, fine or not. You, however, must not laugh at yourself. You must know that brown is as pretty as white or prettier and crinkley hair as straight even though it is harder to comb. The main thing is the YOU beneath the clothes and skin—the ability to do, the will to conquer, the determination to understand and know this great, wonderful, curious world. Don’t shrink from new experiences and custom. Take the cold bath bravely. Enter into the spirit of your big bed-room. Enjoy what is and not pine for what is not. Read some good, heavy, serious books just for discipline: Take yourself in hand and master yourself. Make yourself do unpleasant things, so as to gain the upper hand of your soul.
Above all remember: your father loves you and believes in you and expects you to be a wonderful woman.
I shall write each week and expect a weekly letter from you.
Lovingly yours,
Papa
* * *
For two months in 1974, as Richard Burton filmed his part in The Klansman, he and his wife, Elizabeth Taylor, moved to California with Cassius, just one of Taylor's many beloved cats. Sadly, the trip confused Cassius somewhat and he soon went missing, never to return. Taylor wrote the following letter some time after his disappearance.
(Submitted by Kieran Johnson; Image of Liz Taylor via Vintage Everyday.)
Transcript
Letter to my Lovely Lost Cat
I see you, my beauty boy, in the refelection of those shining black-brown rocks ahead of me. I see the green o' thy eyes in every rained, sweated leaf shaking in my eyes.
I remember the sweet smell of your fur against my neck when I was deeply in trouble and how, somehow you made it better — you knew! You knew always when I hurt and you made comfort for me, as I did once for you when you were a broken kitten.
Anyway, I love you Cassius — and thank you for your beauty.
Please come back!
* * *
Dear Nikki -
Thanks for your very flattering offer. It's great to know I have such a devoted fan out there, and I'm sure you would make a great prom date (I didn't go to mine - it's a verysad story).
Unfortunately, I got married recently and my wife doesn't allow me to go to proms anymore with cute 16 year old girls. Still, it was very cool of you to ask me. Thanks and have a great evening.
Your Friend,
Conan
Source:
"Letters of Note." http://www.lettersofnote.com/p/archive.html
"Letters of Note." http://www.lettersofnote.com/p/archive.html
* * *
Famous Love Letters
From Franz Kafka to Milen Jesensk, 1921
"Kafka’s dirtiness is all rather metaphorical, but nonetheless" (Temple, slide 4).
No, Milen, I beg you once again to invent another possibility for my writing to you. You mustn’t go to the post office in vain, even your little postman — who is he? — mustn’t do it, nor should even the postmistress be asked unnecessarily.
If you can find no other possibility, then one must put up with it, but at least make a little effort to find one.
Last night I dreamed about you. What happened in detail I can hardly remember, all I know is that we kept merging into one another. I was you, you were me. Finally you somehow caught fire.
Remembering that one extinguished fire with clothing, I took an old coat and beat you with it.
But again the transmutations began and it went so far that you were no longer even there, instead it was I who was on fire and it was also I who beat the fire with the coat.
But the beating didn’t help and it only confirmed my old fear that such things can’t extinguish a fire.
In the meantime, however, the fire brigade arrived and somehow you were saved.
But you were different from before, spectral, as though drawn with chalk against the dark, and you fell, lifeless or perhaps having fainted from joy at having been saved, into my arms.
But here too the uncertainty of trans mutability entered, perhaps it was I who fell into someone’s arms.
* * *
From Oscar Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas, 1893
"Tame by modern standards (though lyrically delicious), this is one of the letters that was used to prosecute Wilde on charges of obscenity" (Temple, slide 5).
My Own Boy,
Your sonnet is quite lovely, and it is a marvel that those red-roseleaf lips of yours should be made no less for the madness of music and song than for the madness of kissing. Your slim gilt soul walks between passion and poetry. I know Hyacinthus, whom Apollo loved so madly, was you in Greek days. Why are you alone in London, and when do you go to Salisbury? Do go there to cool your hands in the grey twilight of Gothic things, and come here whenever you like. It is a lovely place and lacks only you; but go to
Salisbury first.
Always, with undying love,
Yours, Oscar
Yours, Oscar
* * *
From Edith Wharton to W. Morton Fullerton, 1908
"She’s a better flirt than she thinks, if she can so subtly paint a scene of ravishment" (Temple, slide 6).
* * *
From Virginia Woolf to Vita Sackville-West, 1927
"This one’s not all that dirty—unless you take the next step and get to imagining the “millions, myriads” of things in her head that “won’t stir by day,” not to mention note a double entendre or two—but it’s one of our all-time favorites, so we’re imagining away" (Temple, slide 7).
Look Here Vita — throw over your man, and we’ll go to Hampton Court and dine on the river together and walk in the garden in the moonlight and come home late and have a bottle of wine and get tipsy, and I’ll tell you all the things I have in my head, millions, myriads — They won’t stir by day, only by dark on the river. Think of that. Throw over your man, I say, and come.
* * *
From Ernest Hemingway to Mary Welsh (who would become his fourth wife), April 16, 1945
"Who would have ever figured Papa for a hopeless romantic? He sounds positively love crazed here — calling her by the adorable pet name “Pickle” — which makes us feel the good kind of dirty." (Temple, slide 9)
Dearest Pickle,
So now I’m going out on the boat with Paxthe and Don Andres and Gregorio and stay out all day and then come in and will be sure there will be letters or a letter. And maybe there will be. If there aren’t I’ll be a sad s.o.a.b. But you know how you handle that of course? You last through until the next morning. I suppose I’d better figure on there being nothing until tomorrow night and then it won’t be so bad tonight.
Please write me Pickle. If it were a job you had to do you’d do it. It’s tough as hell without you and I’m doing it straight but I miss you so [I] could die. If anything happened to you I’d die the way an animal will die in the Zoo if something happens to his mate.
Much love my dearest Mary and know I’m not impatient. I’m just desperate.
Ernest
