The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #43818 Message #3420771
Posted By: GUEST
16-Oct-12 - 12:06 PM
Thread Name: Explore: Raglan Road 2
Subject: found this on a web site
I found this on a web site which might be of interest. It,s a letter PK wrote to Hilda saying he dosn,t love her anymore.
IS THE day of love letters over, now that we communicate by email or text, or by poking people on Facebook? Bridget Hourican, literary editor of The Dubliner magazine, reminds us of the heady days of love missives, when the sight of her beloved's handwriting could send a woman into a tizzy, in her new book, Straight From The Heart, Irish Love Letters.
The collection includes letters from James Joyce to Nora Barnacle, from Charles Stewart Parnell to Katherine O'Shea and Michael Collins to Kitty Kiernan.
The 40-year-old poet is writing to the great unrequited love of his life to tell her that he no longer loves her. Hilda Moriarty was a stunning 22-year-old medical student when Kavanagh developed an obsession with her, stalking her around Dublin and even to her family home in Dingle.
62 Pembroke Road.
31 May 1945.
My dearest Hilda,
Please do not take exception to the address of 'dearest' or think it a presumption on my part. I am no longer mad about you although I do like you very very much. I like you because of your enchanting selfishness and I really am your friend - if you will let me.
I should not, perhaps, write this letter to you without you replying to my other, but I am in such a good humour regarding you that I want you to know it. Remembering you is like remembering some dear one who has died. There has never been - and never will be - another woman who can be the same to me as you have been. Your friendship and love or whatever it was, was so curious, so different.
Write to me a friendly letter even if I cannot see you. I met Cyril in the Country Shop and he was looking well,
Believe me, Hilda,
Yours fondly,
Patrick.