One half of a pair of scissors without its fellow...

Finding books of famous people's personal correspondence has an all-alluring charm for me - I loved reading 'Gallileo's Daughter'...even though their letters were mostly comprised of weird herbal remedies and long prayers invoking every saint in the calendar. It's like reading diaries published posthumously - there is a sort of guilty feeling of 'would the author have minded?' I personally find the mundanities that people put down in letters and journals deeply fascinating - particularly if they are the mundanities of several centuries ago! Well; the other day I was at the library (well, I don't actually live there all the time, you know!) and, whilst browsing the autobiographies I came across 'Letters to Ann' a book about Matthew Flinders and his relationship with his wife Ann Chappelle; I borrowed it, of course... Who would have guessed that the man who basically mapped Australia (as well as practially naming it) could write such letters? (when he believed that marrying Ann was impossible because of lack of money) "whilst I am torn by winds and waves on various coasts and in various climes, may thou enjoy that serenity that a contemplative mind feels on surveying its own happiness. May thou meet with one whose mind and heart is worthy of thy love and whose circumstances unlike mine can afford thee the enjoyment of life. Adieu, perhaps the last time. This excess of misery is too great to be often recalled. It is seldom that I have written a letter in tears." "My various occupations and provisions are at a stand; and to me there is no other being in the world than Annette" (After marrying her and before leaving her behind in England whilst he sailed South) "Rest confident, my dear, of thy ardent and unalterable affection of thy own MF; he DOES love thee beyond everything. I go, beloved, to gather riches and laurels with which to adorn thee; rejoice at the opportunity which fortune and circumstances give me to do it. Rest assured of the unalterable affection of thy own wanderer." (After leaving for Australia) "I am just as awkward without thee as one half of a pair of scissors without its fellow... The idea of how happy we might be will sometimes intrude itself and take away the little spirits that thy melancholy situation leaves me... thou dearest, kindest of women." Forget Mr Darcy (who, though he was lovely, wasn't real) I want to marry a guy like Matthew Flinders!