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+From The Tatler.+
I fell in the other evening with a party who were engaged in examining
which was the handsomest style of addressing the Fair, and writing
Letters of Gallantry.--Many were the opinions immediately declared on
this subject: Some were for a certain softness; some for I know not what
of delicacy; others for something inexpressibly tender: When it came to
me, I said there was no rule in the world to be made for writing
Letters, but that of being as near what you speak face to face as you
can; which is so great a truth, that I am of opinion, writing has lost
more Mistresses than any one mistake in the whole legend of Love. For
when you write to a Lady for whom you have a solid and honourable Love,
the great idea you have of her, joined to a quick sense of her absence,
fills your mind with a sort of tenderness, that gives your language too
much the air of complaint, which is seldom successful. For a man may
flatter himself as he pleases, but he will find, that the women have
more understanding in their own affairs than we have, and women of
spirit are not to be won by mourners.--Therefore he that can keep
handsomely within rules, and support the carriage of a companion to his
mistress, is much more likely to prevail, than he who lets her see the
whole relish of his life depends upon her. If possible therefore, divert
your mistress, rather than sigh to her. The pleasant man she will desire
for her own sake; but the languishing lover has nothing to hope for but
her pity. To shew the difference I produced two Letters a Lady gave me,
which had been writ to her by two gentlemen who made love to her, but
were both killed the day after the date at the battle of _Almanza_. One
of them was a mercurial gay-humoured man; the other a man of a serious
but a great and gallant spirit. Poor _Jack Careless!_ This is his
letter: You see how it is folded: The air of it is so negligent, one
might have read half of it by peeping into it, without breaking it open.
He had no exactness.
_MADAM_,
‘It is a very pleasant circumstance I am in, that while I should be
thinking of the good company we are to meet within a day or two, where
we shall go to loggerheads, my thoughts are running upon a Fair Enemy in
_England_. I was in hopes I had left you there; but you follow the camp,
tho’ I have endeavoured to make some of our leaguer Ladies drive you out
of the Field. All my comfort is, you are more troublesome to my Colonel
than myself: I permit you to visit me only now and then; but he
downright keeps you. I laugh at his honour as far as his gravity will
allow me; But I know him to be a man of too much merit to succeed with a
woman. Therefore defend your heart as well as you can, I shall come home
this winter irresistibly dressed, and with quite a new foreign air. And
so, I had like to say, I rest, but alas! I remain, _Madam_,
_Your most Obedient, Most Humble Servant_,