The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1901-01-13
HISTORIC love LETTERS
All Tender Missives Are Not
Penned to Maids.
Here Are EpistIes That Prove That
Husbands Sometimes Write Loving
Neither Beautiful Nor Young
KingsIcy's Tribute to His Home.

Although 1t is popularity supposed that
all love letters are written by men pre-
vious to their marriage to the woman
they adore, such is by no means the case
Love often endures long after the honey
moon and finds expression in the tender
est of epistles
Oliver CromwelTs wife was an ordinary.
rather commonplace woman, but her hus-
band never ceased to love her, and thirty
years after their marriage he writes to
her 1.-THE day after the battle of DUNBAR:
Truly, IL love you not too we'll think
err not on the other hand too much.
Thou art dearer to me than any creature;
let that suffice" And the constant re-
fraln with which the recipient of such let
ters replied was: Truly. my life is but
| half life in your absence"
The letters which the great Duke Of
Marlborough wrote to his imperious wife.
Sarah, Duchess Of Marlborough, from the
busiest campaigns in which he was en-
gagged, were as truly love letters as any
that were ever written by the most ro-
mantle people before marriage. In one
sent after the birth of his second child
he says to his absent wife: 81 am impa-
tient to have you with me; do not lose
a moment in coming to him who adores
you above his own SOUL
In another letter he writes: 81 do as
sure you, upon my soul, that had much
rather the whole world should go wrong
than that you should be uneasy" He then
refers to her dear letters and adds
that she is ''dearer to him ten thousand
times than ever she was before"
Some letters which Gen. Stonewall
Jackson wrote to his wife have been pub
lished in his biography, and simply run
over with affection. He addresses her
as his pet" his darling, his sun
shine" and his little somebody" He
never writes our house, our garden, but
your house. as though he had no possess
sion in it. Even the pay he drew he called
your salary.
Writing to Mrs. Kingsley from the sea-
side, where he had gone in search of
health. Charles Kingsley said: This
place is perfect, but it seems a dream
and imperfect without you. Absence
quickens love into consciousness. / never
before felt the Loneliness of being with
out the beloved being whose every look
and word and motion are the keynote OF
my life. People talk of love ending at
the altar. Fools, l lay at the
window all morning thinking OF nothing
but home; how l long for iti''
When away from home Thomas Hood,
the poet, wrote most touching letters to
his wife. One of them ended in these
words OF enthusiastic tenderness: Bless
you. bless you again and again, my dear
one, my only one, my one as good as a
thousand to your old unitarian ia love
T. H.
Many wives deserve, but few receive,
such an l o U as that which the grateful
humorist gave to his wife in one of his
letters when absent from her, says a
writer in the Chicago Chronicle" 81
never was anything, dearest, till knew
you, and 1 have been better, happier,
and more prosperous man ever since. Lay
by that truth in lavender, sweetest, and
remind me of it when l fail. / am writ
ing warmly and fondly, but not without
good cause. Perhaps there is an
afterthought that whatever may tefall
me the wife of my bosom will have the
acknowledgment Of her tenderness,
worth, excelience-all that is wifely or
womanly-from my PEN"