The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1905-06-16
BY MARGARET l.. SANGSTER

! BY MARGARET L. SANGSTER.
! copyright. 1905. by Joseph B. Bowies)
Love letters, if they mean anything,
are not cold >effusions, weighed and
measured and written with view to
| criticism, but are vehement and pas
| sionate expressions Of the heart. A
girl who receives a letter from her
lover interprets it by the tones of his
voice. by the glance of his eye, by the
warm pressure of his hand. When she
| reads it. she hears him talking. She
! is listening again to the sweet story
| that is so old, yet SO new, whether told
in dewy lanes by the light of the moon,
Or in coy drawing-rooms under a gas
| burner.
| A love letter, though it throb with
emotion. is always deferential as we'll
Is tender, if written by man to the
sweetheart whom he adores. In true
| hearted alteration there is reverence.
and if man have no reverence for
woman, he does not rightly adore her.
The knight of modern days, as of
medieval romance, renders homage to
his lady-loye. 1t almost goes without
saying that no man ever writes love
letter that is not perfectly respectful
and translucently pure. to a girl who
| ae hopes will become his wife,
In more forMal age than ours, the
language of courtesy and compliment
| was high flown and the method of ad-
dress extremely ceremoniOus. Hon
| bred Madam" was the common form OBJ
| served by the gentlemen of colonial
days, and VERY Respectfully, Your Obe-
dent Servant" often concluded love
letter. Gushing sentimentality in cor
respOndence was regarded as in afro
cious taste. So great man as Dr. Sam
uel Johnson, in writing to lifelong
| friend. said most truly: ''Those who
| have loved longest love best. A sud-
| den blaze of affection may by single
blast of GOODNESS be extinguished but
to those who have been much together.
everything heard and everything seen
recalls some pleasure communicated, or
some benefit conferred some petty quar-
rel or some slight endearment"
Among the most exquisite love letters
extant are those of Nathaniel Haw-
thorne to his wife, who was Sophia
Peabody. Equally perfect are those OF
Thomas Carlyle to his beloved wife,
Jane Welsh. Napoleon's letters to Jo-
sephine, written in camp and on
the march in the most thrilling periods
of his meteoric career. are models of
fire and enthusiasm. But these are
the letters of married lovers. and | am
thinking JUST now of the correspond
ence that passes between the unmar
ried.
In absence girl writes to. as we'll as
receives letters from. her men friends,
who may be friends merely and not
lovers. The rules that govern all let
ter writing between friends govern her
in such communications. Neither vapid
sentiment nor ardent admiration may
enter here. Engaged lovers. or lovers
on the brink OF betrothal write in more
intimate fashion with OutpOurings or
feelings and desire for meeting, which
are appropriate and charming. Such
and years after. when yellow and faded,
they may be read again and revive the
gladness of an exquisite youth.
But land girls will pardon the re-
minder). one must know thoroughly
the refinement and nobility of the man
she addresses in a letter that reveals
her soul. Never. no matter how great
10 fopC nj a RI 1ptt
that would shame you or outrage your
standard of delicacy, if it should fall
into the wrong hands.
Something strangely imperishable at
taches itself to written word. Let
ters have a curious indestructibility.
They hide away in books. or slip into
the corners of a desk. or seem to have
disappeared forever. only to turn up
again unexpectedly years after their
writer's have forgotten them.
A love letter which was a proposal
of marriage was one day slipped by
good man into book he lent girl he
admired. He naturally imagined she
| would Immediately read the book, but
her attention was diverted and the vol
ume HOl IOOhlHS especially ATTRACTIVE.
she glanced at it and laid it aside With
the perversity of inanimate things. it
drifted out of sight and concealed it.
self on top shelf. Thirty years later
when both lady and lover had long
been married. not to one another. how
ever, the old letter dropped out of the
| old volume. when in some domestic up
| heaval the library was being trans
| ferred elsewhere in the house. an
ample house of the Old Dominion.
| May I earnestly beg girls never to
| carry on ciandestine correspondence?
ia girls life must be an open page. To
write to anyone, whose wish to write to
you implies a reservation from your
family, is most unwise. A girl need
not show her letters to her mother, but
her mother should know to whom she
writes.
+. A girl observes now and then fall
| tho nff IF in in lot ho