The Savannah morning news., 1903-01-18
AS TO LOVE LETTERS
AID the Indiscretion of Analysing
ones Emotions on Paper.


.a,snapers. What a confusion let
nc have been creating lately! Just
-oo the reputation of dead woman
80 rbe life of famous musician are
,,ngng upon ona httle bundle of
tiers in Paris; while the poor little
1rince of Siam has almost been drag
- down to the level of a fool by
come boylish love letters which he
,rce wrote to an actress, who is now
cling them for advertising. purposes
-, publishing them in all the penny
.o,,rnals of America. 1 know that the
ge woman would feeel as though
son,ebody had checked her if she
,ouldn't spell her soul out on paper.
Tho question of just how far girl
nav 90 when writing to her sweet
Kart has never been decided. OBJ
i0uelv. il depends something on the
zirl very much on the sweetheart and
: Great deal upon the situation. A wo-
-,sn feels as though she ought to be
able 10 say anything she thinks; indeed,
n Law her heart quite bare to any
man who loves her If he is a gentleman.
But she forgets that she has TO reckon
uith death, accidents and prying land
,odies And the finest man in the
uorld may promise to burn your letters
and then keep just one or two of the
most sentimental ones because ne
hasn't the heart to part with them.
Won may have written those letters in
a moment of inspiration that made
them seem to you as hallowed and
sacred as the Bible, but somehow they
never look nice in the newspapers.
The safest thing for girl to do is
N write that she is going to be famous,
and with the idea that her letters are
to he published after death by mer-
cenary progeny. Then she will say a
lot of interesting things which will
charm the man irp question, and yet
would make good general reading II
the public should ever take a notion
10 investigate. A man never appreci-
stes a mushy, gushy letter that seems
TO be stopping over at the corners
with sentiment, like a jelly roll. He
doesn't like terms of endearment, such
as dearest" and darling" spread on
as thickly as apple butter He doesn't
care for sweets in the shape of either
candy or lovemaking, as a girl does.
A dainty touch of sound, beautiful sem
timent, in the heart of a clever, enter
tanning letter is much more effective
with him, than ten pages of silly sem
timentality. You know how, when
your plate is too full, the sight of it
takes away your appetite, and how a
single sip of something really good
creates a desire for more. What a girl
must do all her life long is to create
a desire for more. That is her mission
as we'll as her art. Be original, be
spicy, be charming, but be niggardly-
especially on paper.
The man who is so overwhelmingly
careful is thinking of himself, not
of you, while he is writing. When a
man really loves you. the only thing
on earth he is afraid of is that he
Il will not get YOU.
u If the usual girl who INDUCES in SEN
4 timental notes would project herself
4 into Tie future few years and draw
q mental picture of the wives of her
correspondents in the attitude of read
E Ing these notes I fancy she would
s. write in an altogether different vein.
l wrote my last love letter, at the
i age of II. l haven't it here to show
you, because l burned it, with vow
never to write another. The ashes are
under rock our in a desolate corner
OF kitchen garden. / fancied myself
engaged at the time to boy with yell
low hair and initials just like his faith
4 ers. One evening the spirit of the
u little devil who seems to stand guard
over girls prompted me to make him
4 jealous. OF course, 1 repented and
n wrote him a sixteen-page letter the
4 next morning full of such overdone
I professions of devotion and fidelity as
would make Laura Jean Libbey blush
But in my emotion forgot to put 'Jr."
after his name on the address. And,
4 OF course, since his name was the same
as his father S the old gentleman re-
3 ceiVed it and opened it and enjoyed 1t
hugely. The boy was horribly embar-
raised and quite disguised with me.
lie sent the letter back with one of his
own, saying that he hadn't observed
Il anything that I had done the previous
evening; but If it was all true, as I
confessed in the letter, and if / had
no more regard for him than to for
get TO put the "Jr." on the envelope
al was over between U.S." Since then
l nave allowed the party of the second
part to do the gushing, and with the
ashes under that stone in the kitchen
garden was buried my last confession
N TO man.
concessions are always superf1ous. A
man is quite satisfied with what ne
Innteduy knows. To him a woman is
IKE geometrical problem, quite unin-
teresting after she has been fully
soNed. 1t is only in the solving that
u ne nnds zest, and the more battling
Ie woman or the problem the more
'ilre ne gives to the solution.
d In De frightened by all this, and
NH stop writing letters altogether.
ne woman who can write a clever,
49pdrKllng letter has the whip-han of
nie girl who can get no farther than a
~ -up-to-dinner-M anxi-
bs TO meet u-Elizabeth-sends-
tr-ioVe Write-soon-and = believe-me-
ss"a9aSs sort of an epistle. The love
m9Ir without a letter in it is like tipsy
W. ouulilg without the sauce. Only, when
80 10 write, consider that you are
writing for an audience including the
h dah sister, his future wife, his chum,
husband. '''U 'oui o"n po'sfoie
4 c,aseIhember that love letters, like
sp earettes grow cold; and a letter from
4 NM. Vtu IoVe, after a few years, Is as
n,o,l active as a stale cigarette. The
sf.. VINO takes it out to read it over,
49, the cooling effect of a quarrel
eirlne healing effect of a new love,
he sc SCI. II aside with the same contempt
H .Uuld feel for a cigarette stump.
Re- You read that little story of
n cleany.s ABOUT the young man who
4 on. su mis- pipe with the wire that had
old s Deen wrapped around the rose an
n storv S"eetheart had given him? That
Il NJ was founded on human nature.
IN %Soman always keeps a tender spot
& lo,,a nsr heart for a man she has once
as ~, Out to man nothing is SO cold
anvtbjNeu affection. A girl cannot see
man ing ludicrous in the fact that
# her. b 1lce made fool of himself over
for 80 ~ man can forgive woman
"a raLtny Ihlng on earth quicker than for
# A r,s herself ridiculous for his sake.
81 Ike mans love letters should not be,
s. but iESaes: saecharine and ephemeral,