Musings on Love Letters (and the Scoundrels Who Write Them)
Ink fades. Scandal does not.
There is no craft so deceptively charming — nor so treacherous — as the writing of love letters.
In my experience (and I confess it is extensive), a man with a pen is a dangerous creature.
He may commit all manner of affection to paper — sighs, sonnets, illicit confessions — without the slightest intention of honoring a single word beyond the sealing of the envelope.
Beware, dear reader, of the following signs:
Excessive metaphors involving stars, seas, and eternal devotion: If he must cross oceans for you, why has he not yet crossed the parlor floor?
References to your incomparable beauty: Flattery ages like cream on a summer's day. Beware the man who praises your eyelashes with more ardor than your mind.
Unsealed letters: A gentleman who entrusts declarations of undying love without the courtesy of a proper seal is either reckless or calculating — and neither bodes well.
Permit me to suggest the correct course of action upon receiving such a letter:
Read it twice.
Smile faintly.
Place it carefully into the fire.
If the writer was sincere, he will arrive in person.
If he was merely amusing himself, let him have the ashes.
As for me, I have retained precisely two letters:
One, because it was penned with such wit I could not bear to destroy it.
And the other, because the author spelled my name incorrectly — and I find that sort of insult too delightful to burn.
(Scoundrels, after all, are far more entertaining when properly archived.)
Yours, Most Faithfully and in Fury, Miss Lucine Elizabeth Watson
Composed on the 19th of April, 1835, drowning in a sea of torn paper, ink stains, and rather less dignity than a lady should like to acknowledge.