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Extracts
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Quotes from letters by Emma Hamilton
'If my total ruin depends on seeing you, I will & must... I love
you to that degree that at this time their is not a hardship upon earth,
either of poverty, hunger, cold, death, or even to walk barefooted
to Scotland to see you, but what I would undergo'.
Emma to her first lover, 1786.
‘
You ought to know me, for you have seen and discoursed with me in my
poorer days, you have known me in my poverty and prosperity, and I
had no occasion to have lived for years in poverty and distress if
I had not felt something of virtue in my mind. Oh, my dear friend,
for a time I own through distress my virtue was vanquished, but my
sense of virtue was not overcome….. If I could forget for a moment
what I was, I ought to suffer.
Emma Hamilton to the artist George Romney,
1791.
It has often been remarked that a reformed rake makes a good husband.
Why not vice versa?’
Sir William Hamilton, 1791
‘How shall I begin, what shall I say to you. ‘tis impossible
I can write… I am delerious with joy, and assure you I have a
fervour caused by agitation and pleasure. …I fainted when I heard
the joyfull news, and fell on my side and am hurt, but well of that.
I shou’d feil it a glory to die in such a cause. No I wou’d
not like to die till I see and embrace the Victor of the Nile.
…
.if you was here now, you wou’d be killed with kindness…..I
walk and tread in the air with pride, feiling I was born in the same
land with the victor Nelson…For God’s sake come to Naples
soon….My dress from head to foot is alla Nelson. Ask Hoste. Even
my shawl is in Blue with gold anchors all over. My earrings are Nelson’s
anchors; in short, we are be-Nelsoned all over.’ Emma Hamilton,
September 1798. She had met him only briefly.
‘the admirable Attitudes of Lady HAM-T-N are called Admiral-attitudes’
The
Times, November, 1799
Nelson to Emma 1800, ‘last night I did nothing but dream of
you altho’ I woke twenty times in the night, in one of my dreams
I thought I was at a large table you was not present, sitting between
a Princess who I detest and another, they both tried to seduce me and
the first wanted to take those liberties with me which no Woman in
this World but yourself ever did, the consequence was I knocked her
down and in the moment of bustle you came in and taking me to your
embrace wispered I love nothing but you my Nelson, I kissed you fervently
and we enjoy’d the height of love. Ah Emma I pour out my soul
to you
‘you may readily imagine what must be my sensations at the idea
of sleeping with you. It setts me on fire even the thought, much more
would the reality….if any woman naked was to come to me even
as I am this moment thinking of you, I hope it might rot off if I were
to touch her even with my hand.’
Nelson to Emma, 1801
I love him, I adore him, my mind and soul is now transported with
the thought of that blessed ecstatic moment when I shall see him, embrace
him…. I must sin on and love him more than ever. It is a crime
worth going to Hell for.
Emma on Nelson, 1804
‘The origin of this Lady was very humble, and she had experienced
all those vicissitudes in early life which too generally attend those
females whose beauty has betrayed them into vice…. Few women,
who have attracted the notice of the world at large have led a life
of more freedom.’
Emma’s obituary from the Morning Post
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