History’s love letters provide heartfelt glimpses of the ‘devoted’ and ‘besotted’
“My Own Dear Amelia: How can I express the pleasure it affords me to receive a letter written by hand of her I love . . . .
“Men and women talk of love, can anyone describe it? Can any one give the reason why one person loves another to the exclusion of every one else . . . . I know many ladies, who are amiable kind, talented and refined, all that a man can wish, and yet I cannot love them or do not love them as I love you, and they may be like you, but to me they are different . . . . So I say reason or no reason, some undefinable force attracts me to you, and I have no means of resisting it and would not if I had. “Affectionately LEW.” “LEW” was Lewis Douglass, the eldest son of abolitionist Frederick Douglass, and he was writing to his beloved H. Amelia Loguen on June 16, 1862, from Rochester, N.Y.
Try finding this kind of heartfelt affection on a Match.com profile.
But once upon a time, before the age of tweets and Tinder, lovers took ink to paper to express their devotion to one another. So for this past Valentine’s Day, The Washington Post asked curators at the Library of Congress to select some of their favorite love letters.
Adrienne Cannon, African American history and culture specialist for the library’s manuscript division, focused on letters written by Lewis Douglass to Helen Amelia Loguen.
“The letters present a beautiful black love story, preserved for posterity,” Cannon said. “Lewis Douglass’ singular love and devotion for Amelia Loguen inspired him to poetry, helped sustain him through war, and culminated in an enduring marriage.”
They would marry after Douglass was honorably discharged from the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry following the Civil War. (His was the regiment depicted in the movie “Glory.”)
Curator Sahr Conway-Lanz, a manuscript historian, chose letters written by President Woodrow Wilson to the widow Edith Bolling Galt. Wilson had fallen in love with Galt a year after the death of his wife, Ellen Axon Wilson, in 1914. Conway-Lanz said the two kept their romance a secret until they were ready to make their engagement public.
“This was clearly tough on both of them,” he said. That longing is clear in a July 18, 1915, letter.
“My precious sweetheart: There are so many things I want to say first — but I can’t decide where to begin — but as a preliminary I will ease my heart by saying that which is dearest in all the world — and it is — I love you — love you — love you.”
One of Wilson’s advisers, Conway said, wrote: “It seems the president is wholly absorbed in this love affair and is neglecting practically everything else.” The couple married Dec. 18, 1915. Curator Julie Miller, an early American history specialist, picked a now-famous letter by Thomas Jefferson to Maria Cosway, written Oct. 12, 1786, while Jefferson was U.S. ambassador to France. Jefferson was a widower; Cosway was married. But that did not halt the future president.
“He clearly fell in love with her,” Miller said.
The 12-page letter is structured as a dialogue between his head and his heart. It is the ambivalence in the correspondence that intrigued Miller.
“Seated by my fire side, solitary and sad, the following dialogue took place between my Head and my Heart.
“Head. Well, friend, you seem to be in a pretty trim.
“Heart. I am indeed the most wretched of all earthly beings. Overwhelmed with grief, every fibre of my frame distended beyond its natural powers to bear, I would willingly meet whatever catastrophe should leave me no more to feel or to fear.”
Curator Michelle A. Krowl, a specialist in the Civil War and Reconstruction, selected a letter written by Ulysses S. Grant to Julia Dent. Grant met Dent when he traveled with his former West Point roommate Frederick Dent to St. Louis. “He was quickly besotted” with Dent’s sister Julia, and they became engaged on May 22, 1844, Krowl said. “But Grant’s military career and her father’s condition that they wait to marry until Grant’s professional life was more stable postponed their marriage.”
In a letter dated Jan. 2, 1846, from Corpus Christi, Grant, who was growing impatient with their delayed engagement, begs Dent to speak with her father.
“You know Julia what I think we would be justifiable in doing if his consent is still withheld and I hope you think nearly with me . ... You alone Julia have it in your power to decide whether despite ev(e)rything we carry our engagement into effect. You have only to decide for me to act. If you will set a tim[e] when I must be in Missouri I will be