wlw love letters i | sentence meme
“19th-20th century women in history who exchanged love letters with other women. Many have not lasted due to families choosing to destroy evidence of these letters, while others are merely fragments.” – source.
For this sentence meme series, I’m gathering excerpts of romantic letters between wlw in the 19th-20th century, using the linked source as a jumping off point. In this installment, I will be focusing on the correspondence between Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and newspaperwoman Lorena Hickok. If you’re interested in reading the correspondence in its original context (or as close as you can get it), I recommend Empty Without You: the Intimate Letters of Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok. Not much of it can be previewed online, but the sites whose quotes I took sourced them from that book.
Feel free to change things around as you need to, but remember! This is about the love and friendship between two women—women-loving women—and thus the primary audience for this sentence meme is for muses and/or muns who are wlw. —LIZZY
eleanor roosevelt & lorena hickok
I cannot go to bed tonight without a word to you.
I felt a little as though a part of me was leaving tonight.
You have grown so much to be a part of my life that it is empty without you.
I wish I could lie down beside you tonight & take you in my arms.
Ah, how good it is to hear your voice.
I can’t kiss you, so I kiss your picture good night and good morning.
I’ve been trying to bring back your face — to remember just how you look.
Funny how even the dearest face will fade away in time.
Most clearly I remember your eyes, with a kind of teasing smile in them, and the feeling of that soft spot just north-east of the corner of your mouth against my lips.
All day I’ve thought of you & another birthday I will be with you, & yet tonite you sounded so far away & formal.
Oh! I want to put my arms around you, I ache to hold you close.
Your ring is a great comfort. I look at it & think “she does love me, or I wouldn’t be wearing it!”
We’ll have our time together later on.
We’ll have years of happy times so bad times will be forgotten.
It is sad to be helpless & poor & old, isn’t it? I hope you & I to-gether have enough to make it gracious & attractive!
Every woman wants to be first to someone in her life.
Believe me, you’ve taught me more and meant more to me than you know.
You’ve made of me so much more of a person just to be worthy of you—Je t’aime et je t’adore.
I’d rather go alone with you but I can’t hurt her feelings.
Remember one thing always, no one is just what you are to me.
I’ve never enjoyed being with anyone the way I enjoy being with you.
You told me once it was hard to let go, but I found it was harder to let go & yet hold on. Love as much & yet share.
Darling, I know I’m not up to you in many ways, but I love you dearly.
Love is a queer thing, it hurts one but it gives one so much more in return!
I never meant to hurt you in any way, but that is no excuse for having done it.
It would be so much better, wouldn’t it, if I didn’t love you so much.
He likes you a great deal.
Oh, dear one, it is all the little things, tones in your voice, the feel of your hair, gestures, these are the things I think about & long for.
You have a stormier time than I do but I miss you as much, I think.
I couldn’t bear to think of you crying yourself to sleep.
I’m getting so hungry to see you.
Darling, I feel very happy because every day brings you nearer.
I love you dearly & tenderly & oh! I want you to have a happy life. To be sure I’m selfish enough to want it to be near me but then we wouldn’t either of us be happy otherwise, would we?
I wonder what we’ll do when we meet—what we’ll say.
Well—I’m rather proud of us, aren’t you?
I think we’ve done rather well.
I want to put my arms around you and kiss you at the corner of your mouth.
I just talked to you, darling, it was so good to hear your voice. If I just could take you in my arms.
Someday perhaps fate will be kind & let us arrange a life more to our liking for the time being we are lucky to have what we have.
Dearest, we are happy to-gether & strong relationships have to grow deep roots. We’re growing them now, partly because we are separated, the foliage & the flowers will come, somehow I’m sure of it.
I shall feel you are terribly far away & that makes me lonely but if you are happy I can bear that & be happy too.
I love you dear one deeply & tenderly & it is going to be a joy to be to-gether again.
I can’t tell you how precious every minute with you seems both in retrospect & in prospect
I believe it gets harder to let you go each time, but that is because you grow closer.
Dearest, I miss you & wish you were here I want to put my arms around you & feel yours around me.
This will be just a note to tell you I love you.
Dearest, Darling, you were low & I know that in some way I hurt you & I am sorry & I wish I had not but all I can say is, I really love you.
Thanks again, you dear, for all the sweet things you think of and do.
I grow prouder of you each year.
You are so better than you realize, my dear.
You are still the person I love more than anyone else in the world.
Of course you will forget the sad times at the end & eventually think only of the pleasant memories. Life is like that, with ends that have to be forgotten.