Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1901-01-31

give me. even because of the great
pain | cause you. You are the most
generous woman l have known. If it
would comfort you to blame me for
this | would beg you to do it: but
know you better, and ask you to be-
lieve that it is my deep misfortune
rather than my fault that can be no
longer your lover, as God knows,
was once, dare not say how short
time ago. To me you remain what |
| always found you, the best and most
true-hearted woman a man could pray
/ to meet"
To this letter of his she sends
three, begging him to come to her,
that she may at least know why they
must say good-by. He will not come,
and the remaining twenty-six letters
she writes during the months she is
slowly dying, and leaves them in her
desk. These letters, it is safe to con-
clude, were sent to him after her
death, and their publication evidently
is due to his wish, for the preface
states that they are given to the
world in compliance with "a request,
conveyed under circumstances which
the writer herself would have regard
ed as all-commanding."
Mystery of Broken Engagement
! What was the reason for this alb
rupt ending of the engagement? His
mother was opposed to the marriage,
but she had finally given consent If
she withdrew that consent, what was
her reason for so doing? Was there
something in her own life that made
her sons marriage with this girl in
advisable? Was it that the girl was
delicate and carried death in her?'
Was it something the lover had heard
against her? These are the questions
which the book puts, and which each
reader will need answer for himself
The preface states briefly:
One thing at least may be said as
regards the principal actors-that to
the memory of neither of them does
any blame belong. They were equally
the victims of circumstances, which
came whole out of the hands of fate,
and remained, so far as one of the
two was concerned, a mystery to the
day of DEATH
Putting aside, however, all these
puzzling questions, and regarding the
letters solely in the light of litera.
ture, one can but rejoice at the sue
cess the box has achieved For the
letters are exquisite in their purity
and in the clear revealment they af
ford of high-minded, warm
hearted woman. That they pos
sess literary grace and much
of poetic and imaginative beauty has
already been stated, and certain Of
the later letters written when the
blow was first received and after
wards, ring with a truth, intensity
and genuineness that make them the
equal of sonnets and prose, which
the world has rightly pronounced
great.
Natural and Candid.
The early letters charm by theil
naturalness, their candor, and by the
irresistible happiness that breathes
forth from their every line. They are
saved from a certain monotony chief
ly by the writer's felicitous manner
of expression, for in them only the
one theme of love is sung and varied
and love, though intensely interesting
to the intoxicated by it's magic wine
is somewhat dull to the sober out
slider Only when trouble and mis-
understandings arise does the third
party feel his interest awakening, and
therefore it is that in the later letters
the reader finds more to attract him
than in the earlier ones.
And yet there are beauties many and
of worth in these first pages. Take for
example this closing paragraph:
To-day my love flies low over the
earth like swallow before rain, and
touching the tops of the = flowers has
culled you these. Kiss them until
they open; they are full of my
thoughts, as the world to me is full
of you"
Or the following:
MY heart goes to you like tree
| in the wind, and all these thoughts
are loose leaves that fly after you
when | have to remain behind"
And in the same letter with the
foregoing:
1T is only when joy is past that we
can give it it's full expression. Even
now, Beloved, break down in trying
to say how l love you. Cannot put
all my joy into my words, nor my love
into my lips, nor all my life into your
arms, whatever way I try. Some
thing remains that | cannot express.
Believe, dearest. that the half has not
yet been spoken, Ieither of my love
for you nor of my trust in you-nor
of wish that seems sad, but comes in
very tumult of happiness-the wish
to die so that some unknown good
may come to you out of me-"
His Mothers Objections.
In one letter. speaking of his
mothers evident disapproval of their
marriage. she writes:
Don't say it, but when next you
kiss her, kiss her for me also / am
sorry for all old people. Their love of
| things they ara Ic-fnO 10 en- for mara