Year: 1867

educated people, whenever they turn up
in the papers, are always full Of little
commonplaces which the writers appear
to consider appropriate to the situation.
They never seem able quite to make up
their mind whether il is the correct thing
TO call the beloved object thou or you and
the second person singular, and the second
person plural keep blundering up against
one another in manner that must be
heartrending to any young tradesman's
mistress who is anything of a grammarian.
There is something about the correspond
ence of lovers who belong to this class of
life that reminds the reader of a valentine.
1t is the correct thing apparently among
them to engage in periodical correspond
ence and the British tradesman does il
without a murmur; but his share in il
generally consists Of assurances that when
he got back TO his shop after leaving the
lady of his affections he could not sleep a
wink, but that even in the dark watches
of the night he is, " thine, fondly thine"
The young milliner, TO whom it is ad-
dressed, is far better pleased that these
little forms should not be left out.


The love letters of educated people are
doubtless less grotesque but educated
people have their own common forms,
which to cold and rational observers would
appear possibly little ridiculous in the long
run. The poetry of the times has good
deal to say TO the love letter of the period.
Girls who are tolerably well rea know by
heart all the routine of love-making long
before they ever come seriously in love.
They have seen about it in Byron and
Tennyson, and have sung good deal
about it in connection with the moon,
and with all sorts of angels and of flowers,
at the piano. As soon as the fated hour
of lifelong attachment comes, they settle
themselves down to realize all that they
have heard of, and love which had not a
good deal of moon and flowers aud angels
about it would not seem to them love al
all. The first thing that woman likes
when she is being courted is to be called
something like what amateur musicians
are always calling one another in duets
She is quite wiling to be bee, or a bird
or a. lily but it is de rigiter that she shoulc
be either in the pathological or the bo
tanical line. 1t is all very well if the love
happens TO have been little in the due
way too. He can in this way understand
the feeling, and nerve himself wiihou
much difficulty to respond 10 it. But
he is entirely ignorant about birds an,
botany, his task becomes more serious. He
has the humiliation of being obliged tc
confine himself TO calling his future wife
an angel or goddess, according as he is
most addicted to classical or to Christian
mythology; while the mortifying thought
cannot fail TO strike him that both appela-
tions are it'll elevated and little irite.
If it were not, indeed, for the penny post,
writing love letters might not be so ex-
hausting to the intellect. In old times a
gentleman could only indte epistlcs of the
kind once week or once fortnight, and
plenty of leisure TO get up his literary
steam and to select his illustrations. If al
the moment it did not occur to him what
sort of plant he wished TO call his fail cor
respondent, he had at least seven days to
think about it, and to consult his diction-
ary. The penny post has altered all this
and a lovers imagination how has to un
dergo frequent and diurnal strains which
it is really quite urftted to support
Courtship has become literary crisis ir
life. Men must write as long as women
will read, and it is on this account that the
art of love letter writing deserves to be
seriously taught, and seriously recognized
London Saturday Reuie,c.