Men's Guide to Women

1535

My Lord and Dear Husband,

I commend me unto you. The hour of my death draweth fast on, and my case being such, the tender love I owe you forceth me, with a few words, to put you in remembrance of the health and safeguard of your soul, which you ought to prefer before all worldly matters, and before the care and tendering of your own body, for the which you have cast me into many miseries and yourself into many cares.

For my part I do pardon you all, yea, I do wish and devoutly pray God that He will also pardon you.

For the rest I commend unto you Mary, our daughter, beseeching you to be a good father unto her, as I heretofore desired. I entreat you also, on behalf of my maids, to give them marriage-portions, which is not much, they being but three. For all my other servants, I solicit a year's pay more than their due, lest they should be unprovided for.

Lastly, do I vow, that mine eyes desire you above all things.

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

The Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (IPA: /ˈdɒdsən/) (27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by the pen name Lewis Carroll (/ˈkærəl/), was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican clergyman and photographer.

His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass as well as the poems "The Hunting of the Snark" and "Jabberwocky", all considered to be within the genre of literary nonsense.

18th November 1912
33 Kensington Square


No more shams -- a real love letter this time -- then I can breathe freely, and perhaps who knows begin to sit up and get well --

I haven't said 'kiss me' because life is too short for the kiss my heart calls for... All your words are as idle wind -- Look into my eyes for two minutes without speaking if you dare! Where would be
your 54 years? and my grandmother's heart? and how many hours would you be late for dinner?

-- If you give me one kiss and you can only kiss me if I say 'kiss me' and I will never say 'kiss me' because I am a respectable widow and I wouldn't let any man kiss me unless I was sure of the wedding ring --

Stella
(Liza, I mean).

George Bernard Shaw, an Irish dramatist, and 'Stella' (Beatrice Campbell, English actress), corresponded for 40 years.

November 16, 1814

My Heart -

We are thus far separated - but after all one mile is as bad as a thousand - which is a great consolation to one who must travel six hundred before he meets you again.  If it will give you any satisfaction - I am as comfortless as a pilgrim with peas in his shoes - and as cold as Charity - Chastity or any other Virtue.

Lord Byron, English poet, to Annabella Milbanke, his future wife.

Lord Byron (1788 - 1824) was one of England's most notorious womanizers. A world-famous poet by the age of 24, he had a brief but extremely passionate affair with Lady Caroline Lamb. Pressured by Caroline's mother (who herself may have harbored affections for Byron), he used the opportunity to put an end to the relationship. In this letter, he explains his reasoning. 

August 1812

My dearest Caroline,

If tears, which you saw & know I am not apt to shed, if the agitation in which I parted from you, agitation which you must have perceived through the whole of this most nervous nervous affair, did not commence till the moment of leaving you approached, if all that I have said & done, & am still but too ready to say & do, have not sufficiently proved what my real feelings are & must be ever towards you, my love, I have no other proof to offer.

God knows I wish you happy, & when I quit you, or rather when you from a sense of duty to your husband & mother quit me, you shall acknowledge the truth of what I again promise & vow, that no other in word or deed shall ever hold the place in my affection which is & shall be most sacred to you, till I am nothing.

I never knew till that moment, the madness of -- my dearest & most beloved friend -- I cannot express myself -- this is no time for words -- but I shall have a pride, a melancholy pleasure, in suffering what you yourself can hardly conceive -- for you don not know me. -- I am now about to go out with a heavy heart, because -- my appearing this Evening will stop any absurd story which the events of today might give rise to -- do you think now that I am cold & stern, & artful -- will even others think so, will your mother even -- that mother to whom we must indeed sacrifice much, more much more on my part, than she shall ever know or can imagine.

"Promises not to love you" ah Caroline it is past promising -- but shall attribute all concessions to the proper motive -- & never cease to feel all that you have already witnessed -- & more than can ever be known but to my own heart -- perhaps to yours -- May God protect forgive & bless you -- ever & even more than ever.

yr. most attached
BYRON

P.S. -- These taunts which have driven you to this -- my dearest Caroline -- were it not for your mother & the kindness of all your connections, is there anything on earth or heaven would have made me so happy as to have made you mine long ago? & not less now than then, but more than ever at this time -- you know I would with pleasure give up all here & all beyond the grave for you -- & in refraining from this -- must my motives be misunderstood --? I care not who knows this -- what use is made of it -- it is you & to you only that they owe yourself, I was and am yours, freely & most entirely, to obey, to honour, love --& fly with you when, where, & how you yourself might & may determine.

In January 1815 he married Annabella Milbanke, who bore him a daughter, Augusta, and then left him. During 1818-23, years spent with Teresa Guiccioli, he wrote three cantos of Don Juan, a satirical romance, the Prophecy of Dante, and four poetic dramas. Longing to help Greece obtain independence from Turkey, he joined their fight in December 1823, but died of fever on April 19, 1824. Refused burial in Westminster Abbey, he is buried with his ancestors near Newstead Abbey. Bologna, 

25 August, 1819 

My dearest Teresa, 

I have read this book in your garden;--my love, you were absent, or else I could not have read it. It is a favourite book of yours, and the writer was a friend of mine. You will not understand these English words, and others will not understand them,--which is the reason I have not scrawled them in Italian. But you will recognize the handwriting of him who passionately loved you, and you will divine that, over a book which was yours, he could only think of love. 

In that word, beautiful in all languages, but most so in yours--Amor mio--is comprised my existence here and hereafter. I feel I exist here, and I feel I shall exist hereafter,--to what purpose you will decide; my destiny rests with you, and you are a woman, eighteen years of age, and two out of a convent. I love you, and you love me,--at least, you say so, and act as if you did so, which last is a great consolation in all events. 

But I more than love you, and cannot cease to love you. Think of me, sometimes, when the Alps and ocean divide us, --but they never will, unless you wish it.

Lord Byron (1788 - 1824) was one of England's most notorious womanizers. A world-famous poet by the age of 24, he had a brief but extremely passionate affair with Lady Caroline Lamb. Pressured by Caroline's mother (who herself may have harbored affections for Byron), he used the opportunity to put an end to the relationship. In this letter, he explains his reasoning.

April 25, 1898

And when I have reasoned it all out, and set metes and bounds for your love that it may not pass, lo, a letter from Clara, and in one sweet, ardent, pure, Edenic page, her love overrides my boudaries as the sea sweeps over rocks and sands alike, crushes my barriers into dust out of which they were builded, over whelms me with its beauty, bewilders me with its sweetness, charms me with its purity, and loses me in its great shoreless immensity.

Robert Burdette, minister, to Clara Baker. They were married the following year