A young man corresponding with his fiancée is never, of course,
as formal as in his letters to other people. This does not mean,
however, that his correspondence should be full of silly
meaningless “nothings.” On the contrary, he should aim to
instruct and benefit his future spouse as well as convey to her
his tokens of affection. The following letter well illustrates
the manner in which a young man may write his fiancée a letter
which, while it is replete with proper expressions of amatory
good will, yet manages to embody a fund of sensible and useful
information:
A Correct Letter from a Young Man Traveling in Europe to His
Fiancée
MY DEAREST EDITH:
How I long to see you—to hold tight your hand—to look into your eyes.
But alas! you are in Toledo and I am in Paris, which, as you know, is
situated on the Seine River near the middle of the so-called Paris
basin at a height above sea-level varying from 85 feet to 419 feet
and extending 7 1/2 miles from W. to E. and 5 1/2 miles from N. to S.
But, dearest, I carry your image with me in my heart wherever I go in
this vast city with its population (1921) of 2,856,986 and its
average mean rainfall Of 2.6 inches, and I wish—oh, how I wish—that
you might be here with me. Yesterday, for example, I went to the Père
Lachaise cemetery which is the largest (106 acres) and most
fashionable cemetery in Paris, its 90,148 (est.) tombs forming a
veritable open-air sculpture gallery. And what do you think I found
there which made me think of you more than ever? Not the tombs of La
Fontaine (d. 1695) and Molière (d. 1673) whose remains, transferred
to this cemetery in 1804, constituted the first interments—not the
last resting place of Rosa Bonheur (d. 1899) or the victims of the
Opéra Comique fire (1887)—no, dearest, it was the tomb of Abelard and
Heloïse, those late 11th early 12th century lovers, and you may well
imagine what thoughts, centering upon a young lady whose first name
begins with E, filled my heart as I gazed at this impressive tomb,
the canopy of which is composed of sculptured fragments collected by
Lenoir from the Abbey of Nogent-sur-Seine (Aube).
Edith dearest, I am sitting in my room gazing first at your dear
picture and then out of my window at the Eiffel Tower which is the
tallest structure in the world, being 984 feet high (Woolworth
Building 750 feet, Washington Obelisk 555 feet, Great Pyramid 450
feet). And although it may sound too romantic, yet it seems to me,
dearest, that our love is as strong and as sturdy as this masterpiece
of engineering construction which weighs 7,000 tons, being composed
of 12,000 pieces of metal fastened by 2,500,000 iron rivets.
Farewell, my dearest one—I must go now to visit the Catacombs, a huge
charnelhouse which is said to contain the remains of nearly three
million persons, consisting of a labyrinth of galleries lined with
bones and rows of skulls through which visitors are escorted on the
first and third Saturday of each month at 2 P. M. I long to hold you
in my arms. Devotedly, PAUL.