“You will not believe what a longing for you possesses me. The chief cause of this is my love and then we have not grown used to be apart. So it comes to pass that I lie awake a great part of the night, thinking of you; and that by day, when the hours return at which I was wont to visit you, my feet take me, as it is so truly said, to your chamber, but not finding you there I return, sick and sad at heart, like an excluded lover.” Pliny the Younger wrote this lines to his wife, Calpurnia, into a letter. In our days letters are old-fashioned. We have now e-mails, text messages … and fewer love words. A love letter today does not smell as rose petals, it would be impossible if we think that an e-mail can not smell 🙂

“My heart and I surrender themselves into your hands, and we supplicate to be commended to your good graces, and that by absence your affection may not diminish to us, for that would be to augment our pain, which would be a great pity, since absence gives enough, and more than I ever thought could be felt.” Although I don’t appreciate Henry VIII as a man, when he was in love with Anne Boleyn, he wrote some very romantic love letters to her.

“You may assure yourself I value you according to your merit which is saying that you have my heart by all the ties of beauty, virtue, good nature and friendship.” Richard Steele, a great politician from 1710, wrote this in a letter to his wife Mary Scurlock.

During my visit to beautiful Den Haag, I found a  lovely bookstore. As bookstores and shoe stores always trick me somehow to step in for a while, I walked inside looking for the English books area. I found a magnificent book for dreamy girls likes me: Love letters of great men and women. A great collection of nice words for the loved ones. Den Haag surprises me with every visit there, giving me some kind of joy.

The bookstore Van Stockum is located on Spui 40, 2511 BS, Den Haag, Nederland, just near by the old centre (de Binnenhof). You can order online from the store from their internet page.

Anyway, I think it’s sad that people write less and less beautiful words on nice smelling paper! Too busy? Too less good words? Or just too modern?