Pick out a special stamp for your letter at the post office
Letters of Love
Of all letters, the love-letter should be the most carefully
prepared. Among the written missives, they are the most
thoroughly read and re-read, the longest preserved, and
the most likely to be regretted in after life.
Importance of Care
They should be written with the utmost regard for perfection.
An ungrammatical expression, or word improperly spelled,
may seriously interfere with the writer's prospects, by
being turned to ridicule. For any person, however, to
make sport of a respectful, confidential letter, because
of some error in the writing, is in the highest degree
unladylike and ungentlemanly.
Necessity of Caution
As a rule, the love-letter should be very guardedly written.
Ladies, especially, should be very careful to maintain
their dignity when writing them. When, possibly, in after
time the feelings entirely change, you will regret that
you wrote the letter at all. If the love remains unchanged,
no harm will certainly be done, if you wrote with judgement
and care.
At What Age To Write Love-Letters
The love-letter is the prelude to marriage - a state that,
if the husband and wife be fitted for each other, is the
most natural and serenely happy; a state, however, that
none should enter upon, until, in judgement and physical
development, both parties have completely matured. Many
a life has been wrecked by a blind, impulsive marriage,
simply resulting from a youthful passion. As a physiological
law, man should be twenty-five, and woman twenty-three,
before marrying.
Approval of Parents
While there may be exceptional cases, as a rule, correspondence
should be conducted only with the assent and approval
of the parents. If it is not so, parents are themselves
generally to blame. If children are properly trained,
they will implicitly confide in the father and mother,
who will retain their love until they are sufficiently
matured to choose a companion for life. If parents neglect
to retain this love and confidence, the child, in the
yearning for affection, will place the love elsewhere,
frequently much too early in life.
Times for Courtship
Ladies should not allow courtship to be conducted at unreasonable
hours. The evening entertainment, the walk, the ride,
are all favorable for the study of each other's tastes
and feelings. For the gentleman to protract his visit
at the lady's residence until a late hour, is almost sure
to give offence to the lady's parents, and is extremely
ungentlemanly.
Honesty
The love-letter should be honest. It should say what the
writer means, and no more. For the lady or gentleman to
play the part of a coquette, studying to see how many
lovers he or she may secure, is very disreputable, and
bears in its train a long list of sorrows, frequently
wrecking the domestic happiness for a lifetime. The parties
should be honest, also, in the statement of their actual
prospects and means of support. Neither should hold out
to the other wealth, or other inducements that will not
be realized, as disappointment and disgust will be the
only result.
Marrying For a Home
Let nobody commence and continue a correspondence with
a view to marriage, for fear that they may never have
another opportunity. It is the mark of judgement and rare
good sense to go through life without wedlock, if she
cannot marry from love. Somewhere in eternity, the poet
tells us, our true mate will be found. Do not be afraid
of being an "old maid." The disgrace attached
to that term has long since passed away. Unmarried ladies
of mature years are proverbially among the most intelligent,
accomplished and independent to be found in society. The
sphere of woman's action and work is so widening that
she can today, if she desires, handsomely and independently
support herself. She need not, therefore, marry for a
home.
Intemperate Men
Above all, no lady should allow herself to correspond
with an intemperate man, with a view to matrimony. She
may reform him, but the chances are that her life's happiness
will be completely destroyed by such a union. Better,
a thousand times, the single, free and independent maidenhood,
than for a woman to trail her life in the dust, and bring
poverty, shame and disgrace on her children, by marrying
a man addicted to dissipated habits.
Marrying Wealth
Let no man make it an ultimate object in life to marry
a rich wife. It is not the possession, but the acquisition,
of wealth, that gives happiness. It is a generally conceded
fact that the inheritance of great wealth is a positive
mental and moral injury to young men, completely destroying
the stimulus to advancement. So, as a rule, no man is
permanently made happier by a marriage of wealth; while
he is quite likely to be given to understand, by his wife
and others, from time to time, that, whatever consequence
he may attain, it is all the result of his wife's money.
Most independent men prefer to start, as all our wealthiest
and greatest men have done, at the foot of the ladder,
and earn their independence. Where, however, a man can
bring extraordinary talent or distinguished reputation,
as a balance for his wife's wealth, the conditions are
more nearly equalized. Observation shows that those marriages
prove most serenely happy where husband and wife, at the
time of marriage, stand, socially, intellectually and
pecuniarily, very nearly equal. For the chances of successful
advancement and happiness in after life, let a man wed
a woman poorer than himself rather than one that is richer.
Poverty
Let no couple hesitate to marry because they are poor.
It will cost them less to live after marriage than before
- one light, one fire, etc., answering the purpose for
both. Having an object to live for, also, they will commence
their accumulations after marriage as never before. The
young woman that demands a certain amount of costly style,
beyond the income of her betrothed, no young man should
ever wed. As a general thing, however, women have common
sense, and, if husbands will perfectly confide in their
wives, telling them exactly their pecuniary condition,
the wife will live within the husband's income. In the
majority of cases where men fail in business, the failure
being attributed to the wife's extravagance, the wife
has been kept in entire ignorance of her husband's pecuniary
resources. The man who would be successful in business,
should not only marry a woman who is worthy of his confidence,
but he should at all times advise with her. She is more
interested in his prosperity than anybody else, and will
be found his best counselor and friend.
Confidence and Honor
The love correspondence of another should be held sacred,
the rule of conduct being, to do to others as you wish
them to do to you. No woman, who is a lady, will be guilty
of making light of the sentiments that are expressed to
her in a letter. No man, who is a gentleman, will boast
of his love conquests, among boon companions, or reveal
to others the correspondence between himself and a lady.
If an engagement is mutually broken off, all the love
letters should be returned. To retain them is dishonorable.
They were written under circumstances that no longer exist.
It is better for both parties to wash out every recollection
of the past, by returning to the giver every memento of
the dead love.
Example: My angel, my all, my very self -
Only a few words today and at that with pencil (with
yours) - Not till tomorrow will my lodgings be definitely
determined upon - what a useless waste of time -
Why this deep sorrow when necessity speaks - can our love
endure except through sacrifices, through not demanding
everything from one another; can you change the fact that
you are not wholly mine, I not wholly thine -
Oh God, look out into the beauties of nature and comfort
your heart with that which must be -
Love demands everything and that very justly - thus it
is to me with you, and to you with me.
But you forget so easily that I must live for me and for
you; if we were wholly united you would feel the pain
of it as little as I -
My journey was a fearful one; I did not reach here until
4 o'clock yesterday morning. Lacking horses the post-coach
chose another route, but what an awful one; at the stage
before the last I was warned not to travel at night; I
was made fearful of a forest, but that only made me the
more eager - and I was wrong.
The coach must needs break down on the wretched road,
a bottomless mud road.
Without such postilions as I had with me I should have
remained stuck in the road.
Esterhazy, traveling the usual road here, had the same
fate with eight horses that I had with four - Yet I got
some pleasure out of it, as I always do when I successfully
overcome difficulties -
Now a quick change to things internal from things external.
We shall surely see each other soon; moreover, today I
cannot share with you the thoughts I have had during these
last few days touching my own life -
If our hearts were always close together, I would have
none of these.
My heart is full of so many things to say to you - ah
- there are moments when I feel that speech amounts to
nothing at all -
Cheer up - remain my true, my only treasure, my all as
I am yours.
The gods must send us the rest, what for us must and shall
be -
Your faithful LUDWIG