Marjory

 Dear Valeria,

By shedding tears of blood we praise King T'hamara,
Whose praises I, not ill-chosen, have told forth.
For ink I have used a lake of jet, and for pen a pliant crystal.
Whoever hears, a jagged spear will pierce his heart!

The Knight in the Panther’s Skin: Stanza 4
Translated by Marjory Scott Wardrop

Love,

Marjory Scott Wardrop

Eunice

Dear Valeria,

By Eunice Newton Foote (1856). "Circumstances affecting the heat of the Sun’s rays": Art. XXXI, The American Journal of Science and Arts, 2:XXII/no. LXVI, November 1856, p. 382-383

Marie

Dear Valeria,

Sit down…



Let me tell you a story.

Marie Hassenpflug

Joey

Dear Valeria,



Boo!

Joseph Grimaldi

Amelia

Dear Valeria,

"Come what may," said I aloud, "I will see what lies beyond this door!"
And with this I opened it.” 

my best to you and your little friend from the Nile,

Amelia Edwards

John

Dear Valeria,

The poetical mind has no self – it is every thing and nothing – It has no character – it enjoys light and shade. What shocks the virtuous philosopher, delights the chameleon Poet. It does no harm from its relish of the dark side of things any more than from its taste for the bright one; because they both end in speculation. A Poet is the most unpoetical of any thing in existence; because he has no Identity – he is continually in for – and filling some other Body – The Sun, the Moon, the Sea and Men and Women who are creatures of impulse are poetical and have about them an unchangeable attribute – the poet has none; no identity – he is certainly the most unpoetical of all God's Creatures.

Much love,

John Keats

Frederick

Dear Valeria,

I have often been asked, how I felt when first I found myself on free soil. And my readers may share the same curiosity. There is scarcely anything in my experience about which I could not give a more satisfactory answer. A new world had opened upon me. If life is more than breath, and the ‘quick round of blood,’ I lived more in one day than in a year of my slave life. It was a time of joyous excitement which words can but tamely describe. In a letter written to a friend soon after reaching New York, I said: ‘I felt as one might feel upon escape from a den of hungry lions.’ Anguish and grief, like darkness and rain, may be depicted; but gladness and joy, like the rainbow, defy the skill of pen or pencil.

Best regards,

Frederick Douglass

Ghalib

Dear Valeria,

The prison of life and the bondage of grief are one and the same
Before the onset of death, how can man expect to be free of grief?


Yours,

Ghalib
Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan

Richard

Liebe Valeria,



Beste Grüße,

Richard Wagner

Fyodor

Dear Valeria,

“You're a gentleman,” they used to say to him. “You shouldn't have gone murdering people with a hatchet; that's no occupation for a gentleman.”

Yours,

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky

Mary

Dear Valeria,

The darkness and loneliness of our vast forests filled me with indescribable emotions, and above all other sounds, the music of the thousand Eolian harps sighing and wailing through a forest of pines, was most affecting to my youthful heart.

All my best,

Mary Shindler

Sheridan

Dear Valeria,

Sometimes after an hour of apathy, my strange and beautiful companion would take my hand and hold it with a fond pressure, renewed again and again; blushing softly, gazing in my face with languid and burning eyes, and breathing so fast that her dress rose and fell with the tumultuous respiration. It was like the ardour of a lover; it embarrassed me; it was hateful and yet overpowering; and with gloating eyes she drew me to her, and her hot lips travelled along my cheek in kisses; and she would whisper, almost in sobs, “You are mine, you shall be mine, and you and I are one for ever”.

Yours,

Sheridan Le Fanu

Mary

Dear Valeria,

I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world.

Take care,

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Gérard

Ma chère Valeria,

Ses cheveux épais et longs, terminés en boucles, inondent en flottant ses divines épaules ; une couronne multiforme et multiflore pare sa tête, et la lune argentée brille sur son front ; des deux côtés se tordent des serpents parmi de blonds épis, et sa robe aux reflets indécis passe, selon le mouvement de ses plis, de la blancheur la plus pure au jaune de safran, ou semble emprunter sa rougeur à la flamme ; son manteau, d'un noir foncé, est semé d'étoiles et bordé d'une frange lumineuse ; sa main droite tient le sistre, qui rend un son clair, sa main gauche un vase d'or en forme de gondole.

Amicalement,

Gérard de Nerval

Gustav

Chère Valeria,



Amicalement,

Gustav Doré

Mary

Dear Valeria,

For unless there be a cause, there exists no first, essential, or necessary cause. Unless final causes are physical efficients, they could not operate, unless upon every theory of the mind. The fact of single and double vision cannot be explained consistently with any theory, and as being deducible from the general laws of causation. Such a theory is null, for two reasons; therefore, I encourage myself to hope for the future success and prevalence of my own notions. Firstly, for truth's sake, which is the Word of God ; secondly, for God's sake, because Atheists, more than all others, are feeling after Him, but cannot find Him, as ever existing, though invisible. To do this must be an honourable calling, and one which may prove successful whether I know it or not.

Yours sincerely,

Lady Mary Shepherd

Frances

Dear Valeria,

I dare say you marvel sometimes at my independent way of walking through the world just as if nature had made me of your sex instead of poor Eve's. Trust me, my beloved friend, the mind has no sex but what habit and education give it, and I who was thrown in infancy upon the world like a wreck upon the waters have learned, as well to struggle with the elements as any male child of Adam.

Yours faithfully,

Frances Wright

Sojourner

Dear Valeria,

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man — when I could get it — and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Yours sincerely,

Sojourner Truth

Nat

Dear Valeria,

And about this time I had a vision — and I saw white spirits and black spirits engaged in battle, and the sun was darkened — the thunder rolled in the Heavens, and blood flowed in streams — and I heard a voice saying, "Such is your luck, such you are called to see, and let it come rough or smooth, you must surely bear it."

May God be with you,

Nat Turner

Marie

Dear Valeria,

I am in Rome, and it is very wonderful (ah! it is very wonderful, very marvellous). It is cold as Russia, the water freezes in the fountains, but the cold would be nothing if it was only the cold. Since morning we have been in search of an apartment, and we have seen only one. I did not have courage to go up when they pointed out a black, yawning hole, dirty and frightful. I have looked in vain for a house with any resemblance to the French houses. I find only ruins or cracked columns. No doubt it is very beautiful, but agree with me that a good, comfortable apartment is infinitely more pleasant, though less artistic.

Regards,

Marie Konstantinovna Bashkirtzeff