Famous Love Letters ~

"There is only one situation I can think of in which men and women make an effort to read better than they usually do. [It is] when they are in love and reading a love letter."

~ Mortimer Adler (1902 - 2001) American author, philosopher
Famous Love Letters, Messages of Intimacy and Passion
Edited by Ronald Tamplin, Reader's Digest Assoc., Inc., 1995.
"I love you no longer; on the contrary, I detest you. You are a wretch, truly perverse, truly stupid, a real Cinderella. You never write to me at all, you do not love your husband; you know the pleasure that your letters give him yet you cannot even manage to write him half a dozen lines, dashed off in a moment!"

~ Letter Napoleon to Josephine, Spring 1707.

The couple remained married until 1809 when Napoleon had the marriage annulled. (On her death, Napoleon picked violets from Josephine's grave and wore them in a locket around his neck until his death seven years later.)
Napoleon (1769 - 1821), Josephine (1763 - 1814)
~Famous Love Letters, Ronald Tamplin, 1995.
Postcard Collection courtesy of John Walker