The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “letters”

Herman Melville’s Passionate, Beautiful, Heartbreaking Love Letters to Nathaniel Hawthorne
Herman Melville’s Passionate, Beautiful, Heartbreaking Love Letters to Nathaniel Hawthorne

“Your heart beat in my ribs and mine in yours, and both in God’s… The divine magnet is in you, and my magnet responds.”

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Rebecca Solnit’s Lovely Letter to Children About How Books Solace, Empower, and Transform Us
Rebecca Solnit’s Lovely Letter to Children About How Books Solace, Empower, and Transform Us

“Some books are toolkits you take up to fix things, from the most practical to the most mysterious, from your house to your heart… Some books are medicine, bitter but clarifying.”

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Hermann Hesse on Hope, the Difficult Art of Taking Responsibility, and the Wisdom of the Inner Voice
Hermann Hesse on Hope, the Difficult Art of Taking Responsibility, and the Wisdom of the Inner Voice

“If you are now wondering where to look for consolation, where to seek a new and better God… he does not come to us from books, he lives within us… This God is in you too. He is most particularly in you, the dejected and despairing.”

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A Velocity of Being: Illustrated Letters to Children about Why We Read by 121 of the Most Inspiring Humans in Our World
A Velocity of Being: Illustrated Letters to Children about Why We Read by 121 of the Most Inspiring Humans in Our World

A labor of love 8 years in the making, featuring contributions by Jane Goodall, Yo-Yo Ma, Jacqueline Woodson, Ursula K. Le Guin, Mary Oliver, Neil Gaiman, Amanda Palmer, Rebecca Solnit, Elizabeth Gilbert, Shonda Rhimes, Richard Branson, Marina Abramović, Judy Blume, and other remarkable humans living inspired and inspiring lives.

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Frankenstein Author Mary Shelley on Nature and the Meaning of Happiness
Frankenstein Author Mary Shelley on Nature and the Meaning of Happiness

“Coming to this delightful spot during this divine weather, I feel as happy as a new-fledged bird, and hardly care what twig I fly to, so that I may try my new-found wings.”

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“Dracula” Author Bram Stoker’s Extraordinary Love Letter to Walt Whitman
“Dracula” Author Bram Stoker’s Extraordinary Love Letter to Walt Whitman

“How sweet a thing it is for a strong healthy man with a woman’s eye and a child’s wishes to feel that he can speak to a man who can be if he wishes father, and brother and wife to his soul.”

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A 100-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor on How Books Save Lives
A 100-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor on How Books Save Lives

“There are times when dreams sustain us more than facts. To read a book and surrender to a story is to keep our very humanity alive.”

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Emily Dickinson’s Electric Love Letters to Susan Gilbert
Emily Dickinson’s Electric Love Letters to Susan Gilbert

“Susie… come home… and be my own again, and kiss me as you used to… I hope for you so much, and feel so eager for you… that the expectation… makes me feel hot and feverish, and my heart beats so fast.”

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How to Make Difficult Decisions: Benjamin Franklin’s Pioneering Pros and Cons Framework
How to Make Difficult Decisions: Benjamin Franklin’s Pioneering Pros and Cons Framework

A worksheet for the moral mathematics of decision-making from America’s original prophet of self-improvement.

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Loving vs. Being in Love: Jane Welsh Carlyle on Navigating the Heart’s Contradictions
Loving vs. Being in Love: Jane Welsh Carlyle on Navigating the Heart’s Contradictions

“A passion, like the torrent in the violence of its course, might perhaps too, like the torrent, leave ruin and desolation behind… My love for you… is deep and calm, more like the quiet river, which refreshes and beautifies where it flows.”

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