Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 277, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 November 1911 — ONE OF THE LOST ARTS [ARTICLE]

ONE OF THE LOST ARTS

No One Seems to Write Good Love Letters Now, but How Can It Be Helped?

One of the ladies’ journals has been complaining that people nowadays do not write good love letters. We have no personal experience, but from what we spe in the papers we are inclined to believe that the complaint is well founded. In the course of a tender and interesting case in court the other day a love letter was produced. It began, "My Dearest David,” of which we would only observe that so far it is good. But it went on, “I am terribly depressed about money matters. You owe me £l7, as far as I can tell.” If this Is the language of passion, then formal civility seems preferable. We are convinced that the mixture of the two styles in this excerpt is a mistake. Love and business should be kept in separate compartments.

There is no chance for the Romeo who writes: “Star of my soul, the enclosed account being now long overdue, I must request ycu to forward check by return without fall.” But We are not sure that we can follow our contemporary in the suggestion that the writing of love letters should be taught. Who Is to teach It, and to whom? To teach those of your own sex would be dull, and to teach attractive people of the other sex would be dangerous. What qualification would the teacher require? Varied experience is a fine thing In a teacher, but a varied experience In the composition of love letters would be open to criticism. Lastly, the literary love letter is an abomination. Here, if anywhere, we must have the human document. “I never eat boiled beef but what I think of you," wrote an uneducated man in a letter that was read In court a long time ago. It is amusing, perhaps, but It is more convincing than if he had aaid, “The chance repetition of some trivial detail of a scene in which we have been associated unfailingly recalls you to my mind."

It convinced the girl, at any rate. And, so far as we remember, she got her damages. So that it convinced the jury, who might have been boiledbeef enthusiasts.—Black and White.