DEAR SAPHO - A legacy of lesbian love letters from various centuries (No1)

From the book DEAR SAPHO - A legacy of lesbian love letters 
by Kay Turner, Thames and Hudson 1996

''late April 1852''

So sweet and still, and Thee, Oh Susie, what need I more, to make my heaven whole?

  Sweet Hour, blessed Hour, to carry me to you, and to bring you back to me, long enough to snatch one kiss, and whisper Good bye, again.

  I have thought of it all day, Susie, and I fear of but little else, and when i was gone to meeting it filled my mind so full, I could not find a chink to put the worthy pastor; when he said ''Our Heavenly Father,'' I said ''Oh Darling Sue''; when he read the 100th Psalm, I kept saying your precious letter all over to myself, and Susie, when they sang - it would have made you laugh to hear one little voice, piping to the departed.  I made up words and kept singing how I loved you, and had gone, while all the rest of the choir were singing Hallelujahs.  I presume nobody heard me, because I sang so small but it was a kind of comfort to think I might put them out, singing of you.  I a'nt there this afternoon, tho', because I am here, writing a little letter to my dear Sue, and I am very happy.  I think of ten weeks - Dear One, and I think of love, and you, and my heart grows full and warm, and my breath stands still.  The sun does'nt shine at all, but I can feel a sunshine stealing into my soul and making it all summer, and every thorn, a rose.  And I pray that such summer's sun shine on my Absent One, and cause her bird to sing!

  You have been happy, Susie, and now are sad - and the whole world seems lone; but it wont be so always, ''some days must be dark and breary''!  you wont cry any more, will you, Susie, for my father will be your father, and my home will be your home, and where you go, I will go, and we will lie side by side in the kirkyard.....

Emilie -

- EMILY to SUSAN.  The American poet, Emily Dickinson, wrote many passionate letters to Susan Gilbert in the mid-19th century.  Gilbert eventually married Dickinson's brother.  That even seems to have cooled Susan's ardor, but Emily retained devoted for decades.  This excerpt is reprinted by permission of the publishers from The Letters of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson, Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright 1958, 1986 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Elsa Gildow at older age

Monday p.m., c. 1946


Dearest Elsa -
Every night when I go to bed I write an imaginary letter to you - little happenings of the day - thoughts born of a passage of music heard or a line of poetry - so often I would like to put them down on paper but were I do so, your mail would become burdensome and with nothing more than my dreamy ramblings dear...
  This is your Christmas letter - to wish you so much happiness Elsa and though I cannot be beside you to see you burn the Christmas pudding... the corner of my heart that holds my thoughts of you will travel the many miles that separate us so that once again you will feel me near you.  As I light the Christmas Candle at dusk on Christmas Eve, Elsa, a little bit of me will start out - to you dear.
 The Holidays should be a time of pleasant memories - and I am wondering if you remember the Christmas Candles in the villages in England?  It is one of my earliest resembrances....as a very little girl I was allowed to light the Candle that was placed in the window with the curtains drawn far back, to light the Christ Child into the world, and regardless of religions beliefs or besbeliefs, I think it is such a beautiful custom that I still adhere to....
Those are years gone by - it is to-day that matters and into my ''to-day'' - unwittingly perhaps on your part - you have come ... No Elsa - I don't change like April. ....there is a way to, if one is sincere and if it is really so, to make the other person feel or rather know that you are theirs completely.  Since receiving your letter I have thought a lot about it and wondered if I was wrong in thinking the way I do.  I realize it is a definite hang-over from my married years when I was absolutely puritanical - The - how shall I put it?  The transition was after my husband died - and why - I will never understand, though from books I have read, there have been a tendency even if only subconsciously.  It worried me for years - When you hear I will not write it that chapter I don't think you are going to want to believe me, but Elsa every word will be true....
  Now the hands on the clock are allmost at 2 A.M....
 Where was I before I digressed so far?  Back to you dear and the joy it has given me to know you even though it be but through the medium of letters....
So ''Happy Christmas'' to Lao and you dear
My love -


Isabel


ISABEL to ELSA
The long and varied lesbian life of the American poet and writer Elsa Gildow is recorded in her autobiography / Come With My Songs from Booklegger Publishing, 1986.  Three letters written to Elsa by different lovers are published here.  This one is from Isabel Quallo.  Quallo and Gildow met and fell in love through correspondence in the late 1940s and eventually lived together in San Fransisco in the 1950s.
Used by permission of Booklegger Publishing and by courtesy of The Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California.


c. 1928-29

Elsa Gildow at those times

Dearest, Panther would cast many spells if you were here.  He purred and better purred over the words you wrote.... He could see you, dreaming in that sunny spot - didn't you hear him sniffing the air, and turning in the fading grasses ... shoving his nose gently through the Dryad's leaves.  Surely, oh surely, with such a strong desire in our hearts to make each other happy, the Fates will not be unkind.  I love you not only for the flaming moments when I seek to give and take all that is hiden in the heart of passion, when kisses resemble the burning caresses clouds bestow on mountains ere they sleep.  The subtlety of spiritual passion flows like a deep river through our life together . . . I hope you can be hapy with me - I am with you - The world has been unkind to me in some ways, as you know, and I am sensitive when misunderstood - our own ''kind'' being the only ones who can judge us fairly.   For years I lived among aliens, and that, I suppose has left me different than the rather shy but buoyant being I used to be . . . My courage is still there, but my reserve is greater . . . Panther longs for you, and looks forward to your return . . . You often slip in at door, rustling gently, and the leaves enfold the Panther until there is only greenness visible and wavering shadows on the wall! - I enjoy all your descriptions of your doings.  Don't write when you are too tired dear . . .  It is true I am lonely, but I do not grudge you one minute's absence - there are, I hope, years ahead of us, and happy ones at that . . .  There is a lovely article on ''Cat-Worship'' in October ''Cornhill Magazine.''. . .
  Pierrot, sitting on my lap, rubbing my face . . .  He sends you a loving bite.  The imp - eating salmon - looks up to send her love.  Now I am going to read . . . Does Panther's shade kiss you softly in the mornings?  The Imp is now sitting on the back of my neck, purring, like a witch's cat, and softly treading her Joy! - So, I take you nearest my furry heart and kiss you.  You know the rest - Dryad's magic and Panther's spells commingle!  Goodnight!


PANTHER ''TOMMY'' to ELSA
This letter to Elsa Gildow is from Violet Winifred Leslie Henry-Anderson, known as ''Tommy'', with whom Elsa became lovers in 1924.  The two kept family with several beloved cats and Tommy takes on a cat's identity in many of her letters signing off as ''Panther''.  She often addressed and characterized Gildow as the ''Dryad'' - a nymph who inhabits trees.
Used by permission of Booklegger Publishing and by The Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Northern Carolina.


1 April 1985

Elsa Gildow at old age

My Imperial Love,
What if I had not touched the napkin to my lips and seen your note?  Would there still be forty-four years between us?  Now there is a floral tissues.  Dear hortiphile, you know how permeable I am to wet languange.  So age is just a matter of experience, and some of us are more experienced than others?  Well, how delightfully true, and I LOVE being your favorite ''thermosexual''.


I think I made love with you at first sight.  Remember when you picked me up at the depot?  It was 1970.  You were only seventy then.  You wore your long hair coiled in a crown round your head.  At every curve of the road, you sounded your horn.


For me, the fusion was so swift, my body always knew it could only catch up more slowly - like fifteen years give or take a few moons.  This unlimited longing was the sweetest marrow in my bones.  Time is my inhalant, carrying your colors in its fragrance.


If I indeed ''kindle your french'' please know your tongue glistens miracles in me.  Thank you for widening heaven.


Is the Goddess House ever so happy as when Her girls come back flushed with love?  Void filled to the brim?


Yr,
Celeste


CELESTE to ELSA
A letter from Celeste West, who in 1985 answered Elsa Gildow's written request to "Come join me tonight in the Springtime of my death.''  West is a pansexual, devoted hortiphile and lover of scholarly women, who began writing advice for the love worn in Lesbian Love Advisor (Cleis, 1989).  West left the garden path for wildflower slopes in Lesbian Polyfidelity (Booklegger Publishing, 1996) and is now cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown.
Used by permission of Booklegger Publishing.
... Continues to a new post (DEAR SAPHO 2)