The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1867-01-11
LovE-LETTERs.
An Amusing Sketch.

most men, 10 the course OF a long and cheek.
cred career, become familiar with. If they
have not got to write love letters of their
own, the chances of life or of a profession
bring them generally into contact with the
love letters of other people; and general APP
pearance agrees in this, that there is no branch
of literature so universally cultivated to SO
very little purpose or use. Love letters
ought, on theory, TO be full OF genius. They
contain, or are supposed to contain. the
young gushings of nature aud of the heart.
And it is very much IN favor of the writers
that they write in moments OF considerable
exalation, and mean what they write to be
seen only by one pair of liquid eyes. At
such a task one would think only q very stu
pid man could fail; but, on the contrary, one
finds that very few men succeed. Perhaps,
at the time, it is not OF much consequence
whether the author is fortunate in a literary
point of view or not, as the only critic to
whom his efforts are submitted is usually
blindly partial and perhaps not much OF a lit
erary Judge. Bat as clever women every
now and then are fascinating, and men do
sometimes fall IN love with them, il is neces-
sary to have some sensible views as to what
a letter Of the sort, directed to a competent
critic, should contain. And iuasmuch as, in
the present condition Of society and the
law. nobody can be quite certain
that his love-letters may not hereaf
ter be published, either for the benefit
of the newspapers or for posterity, il is im>
portant that people should begin to give
their minds TO doing their epistoiary duties
well, aud IN a manner calculated TO bring no
disgrace upon themselves or their education.
What ruins most love letters is notthe senti,
ment, or the unworldliness that underlies
them, SO much as the adherence to o com
mon term, which is not, by any means, based
upon the rules OF the highest art. The love
letters OF tradesmen and half educated peo-
pie, whenever they turn up in the papers. are
always fall of little commonplace, which the
writer appears to consider appropriate to the
situation. They never seem able quite to
make up their minds whether 1t is the cor.
rect thing to call the beloved object thou or
you and the second person singular and the
second person plural keep laundering up
against one another Ia a manner that must
be heart rending to any young bridesmaids
mistress who is much Of q grammariau.
There is something about the letters of
lovers who belong to this class OF lite that
reminds the reader Of a valentine. 1t is the
correct thing, apparently, among them to
engage in a periodical correspondence, aud
the British tradesman does it without a
murmur: but his share in it generally con-
6l5tS OIL assurances THAT when ne got UdEk
to his shop after leaving the lady of his
affection, he could not sleep a wink
but that even in the dark watches of the
night he is thine, fondly thine" The
young nilliuer, to whom II is addressed, is
far better pleased thai these little common
forms should not be left out. Love letters,
like a housseau, a wedding breakfast. aud q
trip out of town. are the proper incidents Of
courtship and of marriage. Other young
mllliners have had them, and it would be a
painful thing to think they were to be omit
ted. The happy tradesman is bound to graft
fy 80 harmless a sentiment of feminine dig
nifty. and iourishes away with his thees and
thou's in order to keep pace with his fair
mistress conceptions of what n love letter
ordinarily is, and what it is designed 10 be.
The love letters of educated people are,
doubtless. less grotesque, but educated peo>
ole have their own common forms, which to
cold and rational observers would appear
possibly little less ridiculous in the long run.
The poetry Of. the times has q good deal 70
say to the loveletters of the period. Girls
who are toierably well read, know by heart
ALI the routine of love>makiug long before
they ever come to be seriously in love.
The first thing that a woman
likes when she is being courted is to be called
something like what amatuer musicians are
ALWAYS calling one another in duets. She is
quite willing to be a bee, or a bird, or a lily
but il is de riqueur that she should be either
IN the pathological or the botanical
line. It is all very well if the lover hap
mems to have been a little IN the duet way,
too. He can in this case understand the
feeling. and nerve himself without much diff,
fcnlty tie respond to it. But if he is entirely
ignorant about birds and botany. his task be-
ma more earinns Ha has the humiliation