Ermagod. Benedict Cumberbatch…whatever you think about his appearance, nobody can deny that he has one of the sexiest voices in the world. Seriously, he could send me into a hot sweat if only by reading something as dry as the phone book (or my library science textbooks…). Regrettably, Benedict Cumberbatch has not recorded many audiobooks I can purchase with my Audible credit, at least not so far. However, Cumberbatch was recently involved in a project called My Dear Bessie, a radio program on BBC Radio 4 in which he read actual love letters from a soldier in World War II to his lady love on the homefront. Starring opposite Cumberbatch in the role of Bessie was Louise Brealey, better known to some as Molly Hooper from Sherlock. Yes, an actual Sherlolly romance! You can listen to an excerpt here or the entire thing here (but only for a few more weeks).
This got me thinking, what if I could get Benedict Cumberbatch to read me my favorite romantic quotes from literature past and present? There’s certainly plenty of options. So ease into your chair and imagine that thick, rich, decadent voice vocalizing these words of love in the perfect pairing of book boyfriend and sexy narrator beast. Sigh…if only he was reading this…
1. Well let’s start at the top with English literature’s greatest book boyfriend, Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice…
“In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.” -Mr. Darcy in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Come on…how many times have you underlined that passage and swooned? I mean we were lucky enough to have caught Colin Firth and Matthew Macfadyen (I prefer the latter) on camera saying it out loud, but I could hear those lines to the end of my days and be a happy lady.
2. How could I pick just one?
“When the day shall come that we do part,” he said softly, and turned to look at me, “if my last words are not ‘I love you’-ye’ll ken it was because I didna have time.” Wow, what a man. Those words would belong to Jamie Fraser, the hero of Diana Gabaldon’s genre bending, swoon inducing Outlander series. How could I pick only one? The man will not shut up with this kind of stuff! Taken from the fifth book, The Fiery Cross, that quote is just one of many beautiful words that make women all over the world weep. I can just imagine Benedict Cumberbatch lingering over the words, “I love you” and letting it sink into my sad spinster heart.
3. From that classic Byronic hero…
Here’s the full quote: “I have for the first time found what I can truly love–I have found you. You are my sympathy–my better self–my good angel–I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wrap my existence about you–and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one. It was because I felt and knew this, that I resolved to marry you.” A long one, too long for one meme, and it comes from none other than Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre. I remember reading this novel for one of my college courses and being swept up in it. I really did not know if Mr. Rochester and Jane would get together in the end. (Personally I think Villette is better but in a different way.) Honestly I don’t know if I could picture Benedict Cumberbatch as a Mr. Rochester…is he really tortured enough? Does he burn with inner pain and angst? I guess the closest I’ve come to seeing him like that was in The Imitation Game. Still, I’m holding out hopes he’ll call me and leave a voice mail with those words on my phone…just imagine him prefacing it with, “Hey girl…”
4. You know I love bastards (hello, Jon Snow!)…
The full version: “I didn’t want to give you the one last part of myself that I couldn’t take back. And then you were gone… And I realized it was already yours. It had been since the beginning. Except that I hadn’t told you. It drove me mad, the thought that you would never know.” Goddamnit! I’m pretty sure I read that line in the bath, surrounded by candles, and I’m pretty sure I exploded. And it was flipping amazing! Because Derek, rogue/rake/bastard of Lisa Kleypas’ Dreaming of You, knows how to destroy you. That book is so epic and amazing. I loved the main characters because they were prevented from being together but not in an artificial way. I cannot recommend Kleypas highly enough, especially for people just getting into romance. In any case, the heroine of the novel is named Sara, and I daydream about Benedict Cumberbatch tossing my name in there (with an “h,” please).
5. Last but not least, words said by a man, written by a man!
Full Quote: “I’m in love with you,” he said quietly. “Augustus,” I said. “I am,” he said. He was staring at me, and I could see the corners of his eyes crinkling. “I’m in love with you, and I’m not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I’m in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever have, and I am in love with you.” (Augustus Waters from The Fault in Our Stars) Honestly? Benedict (Benny…) could stop after the first five words, but if he were to keep going and read this whole thing, it’s possible I would cry, or melt, or die. But I would die happy.
I think I’ll end it here, if only because if I don’t stop now, I know I won’t…but leave your favorite romantic quote here. Together we can imagine them spoken by the world’s most devastatingly seductive voice, that of Benedict Cumberbatch.
