15 October 1923, 9 Clarence Gate Gdns

Dear Bertie,

I was delighted to get your letter. It gives me very great pleasure to know that you like the Waste Land, and especially Part V which in my opinion is not only the best part, but the only part that justifies the whole, at all. It means a great deal to me that you like it.

T. S. Eliot

to Bertrand Russell

Rupert Brooke by Sherril Schell, 1913

Flora Poetica

Just as leaning from my taxicab my breath reaches for the back of your neck

Travel, Frank O'Hara

Violent proclivities

you are smiling, you are emptying the world so we can be alone

Now that I am in Madrid and can think, Frank O'Hara, 1960

To love her was to be soothed.

Atonement, Ian McEwan

Rainy Day Women

My daddy is a handsome devil

Sousa Lopes, A Blusa Azul (detail)

Tudo será vaidade, debaixo do Sol

Fiama Hasse Pais Brandão

Nina Leen for Life Magazine

Gosto da gota d'água que se equilibra
na folha rasa, tremendo ao vento.

Todo o universo, no oceano do ar, secreto vibra:
e ela resiste, no isolamento.

Epigrama N.º 5, Cecília Meireles

George Romney, Lady Hamilton as Circe, c. 1782

George Romney, Portrait of Emma, Lady Hamilton, 1785

The weight of the world is love.

Remember the Day

The Trembling of the Veil, Allen Ginsberg

Tudo era assim, quando vivi.

Fiama Hasse Pais Brandão

Pretty as can be

The sheltering sky

"I was standing in front of you for a few seconds, you actually saw me. You looked [at me] fleetingly. And, you did not recognize me." She felt invisible.

Hannah Arendt Martin Heidegger, Elzbieta Ettinger

Elliott Erwitt, Valencia, Spain

James Jowers, E. 8th St., 1967

Oh, eu queria ficar aqui,
pequenina.

Anoitecer, Cecília Meireles

My heart has made its mind up and I'm afraid it's you.

Valentine, Wendy Cope

Pretty as can be

François-Hubert Drouais, Madame de Pompadour at her Tambour Frame, 1763-4

Heidegger's first letter to Hannah, dated 10 February 1925, bears the formal salutation "Dear Miss Arendt". Keeping a courteous distance he declared his respect for her, praised the qualities of her mind and soul, and asked only that she let him help her to remain faithful to herself.

Hannah Arendt Martin Heidegger, Elzbieta Ettinger

Writers in their married bliss

He smiled forgiveness.

I’ve just one ambition in life: I aspire to go on and on being boring

Wendy Cope

Home down the quiet evening roads under the quiet skies,
Not saying much,
You for a moment giving me your eyes
When you could bear my touch.

My Heart Is Lame, Charlotte Mew

Writers in their married bliss

Girl Reading, Harold Knight

The first person is often the lover who
says I never knew anyone like you
The listener is the beloved She whispers
Who? Me?

Grace Paley

We were poorish and lonely and awkward together.

The Sea, The Sea, Iris Murdoch

Francesca Woodman, Self-portrait at thirteen, 1972-1975

The sea is golden, speckled with white points of light lapping with a sort of mechanical self-satisfaction under a pale green sky. How huge it is, how empty, this great space for which I have been longing all my life.

Still no letters.

The Sea, The Sea, Iris Murdoch

Rainy day women

But the sky looks cold, even the sun looks cold.

The Sea, The Sea, Iris Murdoch

Rainy day women

Now no Englishman, however phlegmatic, can have his hand dabbed with iodine without, momentarily at any rate, falling in love.

On Guard, Evelyn Waugh

This is just to say

My heart belongs to this photograph

It's a funny time of year

Vem, sempre vem

And as long as you are here, I am too.

'Cause you're not Dylan and I know we really do get along.

I need the company of people who don't exist.

Paulo Nozolino, Lisboa, 1981