Want a little inspiration to fuel your Valentine’s Day ardor? Check out this website of historic love letters by famous composers, politicians, writers, poets, and others. Some samples:

From Abigail Adams to John Adams, December, 1782:

I look back to the early days of our acquaintance and friendship as to the days of love and innocence, and, with an indescribable pleasure, I have seen near a score of years roll over our heads with an affection heightened and improved by time, nor have the dreary years of absence in the smallest degree effaced from my mind the image of the dear untitled man to whom I gave my heart.

From Henry von Kleist, a German dramatist, to Adolfine Henriette Vogel (who was suffering from an incurable disease), 1810:

My golden child, my pearl, my precious stone, my crown, my queen and empress. You dear darling of my heart, my highest and most precious, my all and everything, my wife, the baptism of my children, my tragic play, my posthumous reputation. Ach! You are my second better self, my virtues, my merits, my hope, the forgiveness of my sins, my future sanctity, O little daughter of heaven, my child of God, my intercessor, my guardian angel, my cherubim and seraph, how I love you!

From Welsh poet Dylan Thomas to his wife Caitlin while he was on a reading tour of the U.S., March, 1950.

Cat: my cat: If only you would write to me: My love, oh Cat.

This is not, as it seems from the address above, a dive, a joint, saloon, etc. but the honourable & dignified headquarters of the dons of the University of Chicago.

I love you. That is all I know. But all I know, too, is that I am writing into space: the kind of dreadful, unknown space I am just going to enter. I am going to Iowa, Illinois, Idaho, Indindiana, but these, though mis-spelt, *are* on the map. You are not.

Have you forgotten me? I am the man you used to say you loved. I used to sleep in your arms – do you remember? But you never write. You are perhaps mindless of me. I am not of you. I love you.

There isn’t a moment of any hideous day when I do not say to myself. ‘It will be alright. I shall go home. Caitlin loves me. I love Caitlin.’ But perhaps you have forgotten. If you have forgotten, or lost your affection for me, please, my Cat, let me know. I Love You.

Dylan

You’ll find plenty more to warm up to here.