“Well I know that I was the interloper: if a man who loves a woman much, so much that it seems his whole life hangs on her way with him, can be called an interloper. Child I suppose it is mans way to want a woman altogether to himself: I said it in the old days “Love me only a little, just a little” and now it seems as I grow older I am saying “Love me altogether and only me” And I know you told me all in the beginning: and I have nothing to offer you: I am poor: I am not clever, it is as wicked of me to want you to keep caring for me when my name is ‘Nemo’ as it is to make or do other wrongs… when like today you spoke about him: something catches at my heart and I feel lost, out in the cold… why did I not know you first? Why did you not tremble to my touch first of all the men in this world. Of all tales of love and sorrow I feel ours stand out for there was no hope in the beginning and there is none now…”

— Ernest Shackleton, letter to Emily Dorman, c. 1897-8