The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-03-10
Love Letters of Famous Men.


 Love Letters of Famous Men. l London Queen.
 1 Dr. Johnson was not a letter writer | in the true sense of the word. His balanced style lacked fiexibility; his strong nature abandon; but his epis- ties breathe the sincerity of his piety. the loftiness of his spirit, the depend ence of his heart upon human afiec- tion. He could write with pictur- esque, somewhat ponderous vivacity, as may be seen by the group of letters addressed to Mrs. Thale during his journey through the Hebrides, which the lady thought were more delight ful than his books. How pathetic and solemn is the glimpse we have of the sick man in the following, written to his friend, Mrs. Boothoy: "It is again midnight and I am again alone. With what meditation shall l amuse this waste hour of darkness and va- cuity? If turn my thoughts upon myself what do perceive but pccr, helpless body. reduced by . blast of wind to weakness and misery?" How touching is this request to Miss Por- ter: Il shall take it very kindly if you make it 6 rule to write to me once at least every week, for I am now very desolate and am 10th to be uni versally forgotten"
 MT. Lewes has thrown discredit upon the correspondence of Bettina {; l he treats 1t as a romance of Bettina's brain, adding that: "How much Is true, how much is exaggeration, and how much pure fiction, am in no po- sition to explain" The book, when it appeared two years after the poets death, threw Germany into a ferment. It was the story of the passionate feel ing with which Goethe, at sixty years of age, had inspired young girl of twenty, and of the half tolerant, half encouraging response he had made to it. The poet seemed god to Bettina. This orphan girl, half German, halt Italian, sentimental, mystic, ardent, loved the poet with all the strength of her soul before she saw him, and when she saw him she worshiped him like votary in an abandonment of devotion. "I lie on the ground on the spot where thy feet rested; am well there and nowhere else,o she writes. Goethe answered letters full of such outbursts in manner that showed his vanity was fattered, his imagination stimulated, his intellectual curiosity, which was ever on the alert for mani festations of character, aroused. "Thy letters" he writes, '.are like braid of thousand colors which l unbind in order to classify it's beautiful wealth" He bids her to go on con- fiding her feelings to him so that he may translate them, put them into rhyme, use them. Another time he writes: "Thy letters are read and re- read with great deal of pleasure ; what my pen could answer fails to convey the immediate impression they produce, and to which one allows ones self so willingly to yield, feel ing, notwithstanding, that those are all illusions, for who could reasonably believe in so much love? It is best to accept it all as dream" Another time he writes; "Thou art like a lovely light, softly brightening the evening of my life." Did the great man tire of his votary? Did Goethe's wife cause the sudden rupture that at the end of four years rid the poet of Bettina's rapturous devotion? Long afterward they met again, just once, short time before the poets death.
 Of the love letters of illustrious men none are more exquisite or tra- gically poetic than those of Keats to his "Leopardess," as the boy poet called the woman he loved. There is no play in these letters. They are written from the shadows of the tomb, with the despair of an all-absorbing love, making life rapture.
 Balzac's letters to the Comtesse Hanska, the lady whom he afterward married, are marvels of expression of the sway of love over rich nature "I have in the treasures of your lct- ters, in the no less incomparable one of my recollections of you, in my grateful and constant thought of all the good you have done my soul by your advice, your example, sovereign remedies against all misfortune and bless you often, my dear and bencG- cent star, in the silence of the night and in the stress of my torments." Balzac had written few years before to woman friend: "Friendship goes further than love, for to me 1t appears to be the last stage of love, quietness and security in happiness" When love touched his heart, he wrote no