Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-02-19
LOVE-LETTBRS' DECLINE
DECADENCE OF THE ART OF
WRITING TO sWEETHEARTs.
The Tepid Billet-Doux of Today Com
pared With the Burning Epistles
of Our Grandfathers.
From the london Nav.

! ten DE men anu WOHlSD 70 SdEil CNiitl III
these days. are, according to Mr.. Justice
Lawrance who 10 one of the most venerable
| judges on the bench very tepid affairs.
Never to get to burning point, but to re-
main lukewarm throughout, is the sad state
| which from the beginning to the end of
modern courtship. most love letters, on
both sides, maintain.
| This is position that must have a rea-
son. There must be some cause for the
| lack of fervor, the slight expressions of
! rapture, the meager outpourings of soul
| of the present day. in lieu of the splendor
| of diction that used to prevail the fowery
| language, the maelstrom of passionate
alteration that garnlshed the sheets lovers
| filled in the past. No one is going to in
! sinuate for a second that modern men and
! women do not know how to love. Their
| devotion to one another is surely as in
| tense as ever it was in any time of the
worlds history. Why, then, are they not
/ ''unshamed of soul?'
| Why they unable to put into words
| in this day of frank expression, too
| their heart throbs, their fears their hopes
| their splendid sentiments, their rare sweet
| rapture2
We live. say some critics, in day of
self-repression. To be sentimental is in
modern parlance to be silly We do not
want to wear our hearts upon our sleeves;
We prefer to bury our expression of affec-
ton deep down, and to make deeds prove
our love instead of letting words cloak
mere pretence
Old Love Letters.
Yes; but did men like Browning, Shelley
and Byron. did men like Keats not know
how to love? Did not love for them mean
worlds upon worlds more than it means for
the average twentieth century sweetheart?
And did not those men know how to melt
hearts s., OF ice by their letters? Could tears
pe Wlt4heid from eyes stony with selfish
ness mat read their effusions? Lived
women worldly enough in those DAYS to
withhold from the passion those epistles
sigh? "a
Alas one seems to hear the titter of
HdlcuIe such letters as men wrote even
MY years ago would evoke from A genera
t tiGn tHat Ioathes as it loathes poison any
thIhg II calls nonsense-or saws 1t does
Let some young man with a pen that viii
OBEY MS heart clCthe his aspirations and
deVotlon IN an epistle as sweet as love can
make II. and send it to the girl of bic
choice. and 1 who write will answer for IL
thdt she Will. secretly at any rate kiss II
thousand times, sleep with II under har
plLow, carry 1t against her heart. and az
I'St eiSIFlne 1t IN an envelope with .syVban
am dead bury this with me" written oIIt-
sue It-that is to say If she really loves
me writer. FOR while the world exists love
Will ana love is always the same FROM
i tde nisl beginning of all things up to this
hoary present And since writing frst u,ass
true women have adored love Tetfar, ~
diSs nten SAID, and there is justice in the
ds9eI non, that many of the vonne 49,
oL ms generation do not know how ~
write love letter With all The nil ~
me %otId they cannot do 1t. Fducated
pepfe stt triey may be to pitch of academic
P5oate' eL ana loving though they NAV
5 , sWeethearts, they simply cannot 10y
80 80, "gat the most magnanimous critic
"T Tho o care 10 style love letter.
Inc other day the challenge Woe, tho
W vi III It country hOuSe
" ed large mouse party and the men were ,oi5
Oh 10 go and write love letters Witch q 81 o,u
hi "s would be read aloud in the preat
to their deserts according
Ferhaps the test was too severe q o,a IT,
- HdTd TO write love letter to ordaTt ~ ~
Ret1rps s went vent and in due time returned.
4eettihed with what they called love la
'sis' the sorriest efforts Imaginable.
A Soldiers Love Letter.
The great Duke of Marlborough toId bis
wife who was to be, in one of his love 1et-
tiers to her, that if She copId Io,,o 49,,
thought the happiness would be so eraa+ -
would make him immortaIl No tbo1gbt -
the power Of his prowess in the battIefeId
would bring him, but Of the immortaIffv
woman love would bestow unon him
what q letter! L do love and adore ynI,
WIN ali my heart and soul" he wrote. 80
Much that by all that is good l do ana viii
9HeI ne bettef Pleased with your happiness
than my own; but oh, my soui' we might
be both happy what inexpressible fov t6at
would be! will not dare to expect more
FAVOR than you shall see fit to give r,a
but could you love me I think the han
pinesS would be so great that If vvoI1fd
make me immortal"
All through his married life Marlborough
was his wife's perfect lover and when
nearly quarter of a century had rolled
by since their uuptials, he wrote to her
after saying goodbye, when he was leav.
Ing for one Of his campaigns II could have
given my life to come back"
The postmaster generals OF the nineteenth
century tilted against love letters. and
aided by those clever persons the inventors
of telegraphy, telephones and typewriters
helped their rapid degeneracy into what #
now IS. Love letters are now mere bust
ness missves, with an awkwardlv eve
cuted embroidery of crudely expressed af-
lection here and there, usually as son
to custom at the end.
No Time to Write.
When letters cost more than a penny
to send by post, writing them was deemed
an art and when writing an ordinary epis-
tie was dignifed. writing a love let
ter was a deed glorifed exceedingly. But
now it is easier to spend sixpence on a teIe-
gram or to ring the beloved one I'D on the
telephone, than to write to her And If she
insist upon letters, what more handy than
the typeWflIeI-Ilat DllSleTSE OF romance
upon which to tap off a few messages of
love?
Every sympathy may be felt for the girl
who would rather have no letters at all
than the inhuman documents the typewriter
iIscribes. The print-like caligraphy of
that useful commercial implement Is hide
Gus when compared to the Irregularities
OF the scrawl of the beloved individual,
which shows, as plainly as If he spoke,
here, where his pen ran away with him
and the hot words almost blistered the
page, there where he halted TO realise the
full measure of the rapture he wished 20
express.
Yet there are lovers who still expect
epistles from another every day ana
there are those who stand to the letter
of the law so literally that the one who
lives in London receives on Monday morn
ings a double allowance of mlssves, be-
cause of the absence of a Sunday post.
Perhaps such devoted couples the few
who keep up the ancient fashion of pour
ing out their hearts on paper; or do they
merely write a sober record of the days
doings, with ever and anon apologies for
only few lines today, such heaps TO do.
and time to get through anythingr"
Anathemas on that demon doing if he be
the slayer OF true love letters