* Napoleon Bonaparte To Josephine
 
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.
		

* Elizabeth Barrett Browning To Robert Browning
 
			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
(1806-1861)
		

* Leo Tolstoy, Russian to Valeria Arsenev
 
			I already love in you your beauty, but I am only beginning to 
love in you that which is eternal and ever precious - your heart, your soul. 
Beauty one could get to know and fall in love with in one hour and cease to 
love it as speedily; but the soul one must learn to know. Believe me, 
nothing on earth is given without labour, even love, the most beautiful 
and natural of feelings.
		

* Alfred de Musset to to Amantine Aurore Dudevant

			I have something stupid and ridiculous to tell you.
I am foolishly writing to you instead of having told you this, 
I do not know why, when returning from that walk. 
To-night I shall be annoyed at having done so. You will laugh 
in my face, will take me for a maker of phrases in all my relations
 with you hitherto. You will show me the door and you will think I am lying.
I am in love with you. I have been thus since the first day I called on you.

Alfred de Musset
		

* Honore de Balzac to Madame Evelina Hanska
 
			Our love will bloom always fairer, fresher, more gracious, 
because it is a true love, and because genuine love is ever increasing.

It is a beautiful plant growing from year to year in the heart, ever extending 
its palms and branches, doubling every season its glorious clusters and perfumes; 
and, my dear life, tell me, repeat to me always, that nothing will bruise 
its bark or its delicate leaves, that it will grow larger in both our hearts, 
loved, free, watched over, like a life within our life...