Saturday, December 12, 2009

Clarence Schnitzel: A Love Letter



















My dear Charlotte,

May I be so bold as to bespeak you with such a glorious name as you have.
I am only a humble painter but I have heard so much about you that I am pining to look into your ravishing and magnificent eyes.

Again and again I have tried to sketch you. But I have failed utterly and I am seized with a heart-rendering madness. I feel so unworthy to send you a line, but I must empty my heavy heart and you my darling are the only one in the world!

I cannot eat nor sleep, but my pictures have acquired a fine spiritual quality which betokens the mad passions which are rapidly consuming my soul.

My spirit shrinks from asking, but on bended knee I implore you to send me one tiny word to give me hope so that you may not wholly perish. Until I hear from you I shall be in mortal agony.

Your ever devoted,
Clarence Schnitzel


Artwork and Letter: This letter was written for my paternal grandma, Charlotte Hall Brown Stevning, 1904 - 1979. Recently I came across it. I do believe it is very sweet. I am a hopeless romanitc! But I cannot figure out if it was a real love, or if it was a joke Charlotte's sister was playing on her.

The collage background contains layers of black and white photocopies of the original letter.

Oh, and I don't know who Clarence Schnitzel is. My paternal grandpa's name is Donald Archibald Stevning.

3 comments:

  1. hello jenny stevning! it is so romantic and sweet. the picture and the letter both are romantic and sweet. "mortal agony". oh the poor man. steven

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  2. Clarence Schnitzel strikes me as a rather unfortunate name. The kind a sister could make up perhaps?

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  3. This letter amuses me to no end. I am grateful to you both, Steven and Pollinatrix, that you can see both sides of it!!

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