Category: Love Letters

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Victorian Window Signaling, Hat Flirtations, Love Letters and More

Gentle readers, oh horror! I’ve run out of passages that I want to excerpt from The Mystery of Love, Courtship and Marriage Explained by Henry J Wehman, published in 1890! I adore this book, so I’m feeling a bit sad. *Sniffs and dabs eyes with lacy handkerchief *

Once again, I’m overzealous with images from Cassell’s Family Magazine from 1890. But I don’t care. When I see these illustrations, my inner Susanna child gets excited like she did over the Tasha Tudor illustrations in her Frances Hodgson Burnett books.


Susanna’s note: And, of course, some of Wehman’s passion drenched love letters. How I will miss them!

To Miss Charlotte Vonk.

Dear Charlotte:— My feelings have reached a point which demands expression, and I must tell you something which I hope may not seem to you unwelcome. I have felt for weeks that life meant nothing for me unless you passed through it by my side, as my precious little wife. I love you as ardently as ever a man loved a woman, and all that there is in me of good, whatever powers of mind or body, I will deem it the highest bliss to devote to you. Dear one, you must have felt something of this. When I have touched your hand it has seemed to me that the electric sensation which pervaded my whole being must have affected you. I put the matter to the touch to win or lose, because I can endure this agony of suspense no longer. I pray you by all that is holy in love to think deeply on my words, that I love you from my very soul. Will you make life a heaven for me by saying “Yes?”

Most respectfully yours,

Paul Preston

To Miss Hannah Palmer.

Dear Hannah: — “When there is love in the heart there are rainbows in the eyes.” Dearest, you have thrown a sweet enchantment around me, and I am only happy when near you. By day your worth and beauty haunt me wherever I go, and at night your teasing blue eyes dance thro’ all my dreams— my life, I love you!

“By all the token flowers that tell
What words can never speak so well;
By love’s alternate joy and woe—
Zoe mou sas agapo”

Sweetheart, will you be my wife? I have plenty to make us happy. Our love will draw down the angels! Be my sun by day darling, and my moon by night. My halls are lonely. Eventide is dreary!

“Oh, then is the time when most I miss you,
And I swear by the stars and my soul and say
That I will have you, and hold you, and kiss you,
Though the whole world stand in the way.”

Be the bright angel of my existence, sweet, and I will love you!

“Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgement Book unfold!”

I remain, yours truly,

George Atridge

Susanna’s Note: No, no dear Hannah and Charlotte! Don’t accept these men!  I beg you. Not until you have read Wehman’s commandments for husbands and wives. 

 

Husband’s Commandments

  • Thou shalt love no other man but me.
  • Thou shalt not have a daguerreotype or any any other likeness of any man but thy husband.
  • Thou shalt not keep it in secret, and worship it; for I, thy husband, am a jealous husband.
  • Thou shalt not speak thy husband’s name with levity.
  • Remember thy husband’s commandments to keep them sacred.
  • Honor thy husband and obey him, that thou may’st be long in in the home he has given thee.
  • Thou shalt not find fault when thy husband chews and smokes.
  • Thou shalt not scold.
  • Thou shalt not permit thy husband to wear a buttonless shirt, but shall keep his clothing in good repair.
  • Thou shalt not continually gad about, neglecting thy husband and family.
  • Thou shalt not strive to live in the style of thy neighbor unless thy husband is able to support it.
  • Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s fine house, nor his fine furniture, nor his wife’s thousand dollar shawl, nor her fifty dollar handkerchief, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.
  • Thou shalt not go to Women’s Rights meetings, neither to speak thyself nor to hear others speak.
  • Thou shalt not scold if thy husband stays out till after twelve o’clock at night.
  • Thou shalt not sum up large bills at the stores, which thy husband is unable to foot; for verily he knoweth his means.

Wife’s Commandments

  • Thou shalt have no other woman but me.
  • Thou shalt not have a picture or likeness of any other woman but me ; for I only am thy wife, and a jealous wife.
  • Remember thy wife’s commandments to keep them sacred.
  • Love and cherish thy wife, and no other woman; that you may live lovingly together in the home thou gavest unto her.
  • Thou shalt not find fault when thy wife goes out to spend money, buying fashionable shawls and dresses; for I am thy wife. Thou shalt not scold. Thou shalt not suffer thy wife to wear a thread bare dress, but shall keep her decently clad and in good repair.
  • Thou also shalt furnish buttons and thread to keep thine and thy children’s shirts in order. Fail not.
  • Thou shalt not gad about, from saloon to saloon, after sunset neglecting thy wife and children.
  • Thou shalt not dress thyself in fashion, unless thou dress thy wife also.
  • Thou shalt not go to spiritual or other slight-of-hand meetings, neither to speak thyself, or hear others speak: thus saith thy wife.
  • Thou shalt not find fault if thy wife should fail in getting the meals in due time ; for, knowest thou, O man !— better late than never.
  • Thou shalt not drink beer nor spirits, nor chew, nor smoke-; for knowest thou it consumeth money. Verily, verily I say unto thee: I am mistress of the house thou gavest unto me.

Ouch! History is much more fun in retrospect. And now I must dash off from the house, which my husband gavest me, to gad about to my Women’s Rights meeting where I am speaking.   Dinner will be late, of course, because I will have spent the evening worshiping another man’s daguerreotype and coveting my neighbor’s thousand dollar shawl.




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Secret Flirtations at the Dinner Table and More Victorian Love Letters

It was an overcast day, and I was in a bad mood. All morning, I sat and stared at my computer screen with no creative inspiration, no burning desire. My mind was dull, dull, dull.  Then I realized what was wrong: I hadn’t posted in months from The Mystery of Love, Courtship and Marriage Explained by Henry J Wehman, published in 1890!  I was in withdrawal. I needed some bombastic Victorian Gothic lovin’ and fast.

I flipped through an issue of Cassell’s Family Magazine from 1890 (I found this lovely campy short story that I will have to post later! You’ll love it!) and photoshopped some great illustrations. Actually, I found too many illustrations. So in the next few days, I’ll create a post on hat flirtations that includes the additional images.

Anyhoo, let Mr. Wehman teach us the basics of dining room flirtation, as well as more lessons on how to write love letters.

 

And now for some yummy love letters!

FROM A YOUNG MAN WHO IS MODEST BUT SINCERE.

TO MISS ANNA WATTS:

Since our last interview you have been constantly in my thoughts, and from your actions, if not your words, I gleaned that the love I have cherished for you during the past five months is in a slight degree reciprocated. Am I wrong in this conclusion? I pray not.  If right, may I hope that some day in the near future you will become my wife? You are the one woman in the world for whom the intensity of my love is equaled only by its sincerity. Financially I have very little to offer you, but, with hard work, my prospects are promising, and what greater inspiration can a man have than the woman he loves to work for? I realized your superiority to me in every way, and yet I beg you to accept my name and a comparatively humble position, when you are fitted for and capable of filling the highest position in the land. My only plea is that I love you. Feeling sure that, after giving this matter serious and deliberate consideration, you will write me frankly, believe me, with deepest respect and admiration, as anxiously awaiting you reply.

JAMES McKNIGHT

FROM A GENTLEMAN TO A LADY, REQUESTING HER PHOTOGRAPH.

DEAR JOSEPHINE:

Do you remember about  a month ago promising that, if I would give it the first place in my album, you would give me your photograph? I promised, and have faithfully kept the page blank, but your picture does not come. Have you repented your generosity, or have other friends appropriated all the pile of cards you showed me? You cannot escape on the ground of poverty, for I know that your last sitting was a complete success, and have a great desire to own one of those exquisite profiles that you tantalize me by withholding.

Do, my dear Josey, send me at once the promised picture, that it may comfort me for absence from your presence.

Yours, most affectionately,

KARL

FROM A GENTLEMAN TO A LADY, REQUESTING PERMISSIONS TO CALL

MISS VICTORIA DAVIDSON:

Having had the pleasure of meeting you once at the house of our mutual friend, Mrs. Bowen, I venture to write to request permission to call upon you at your own residence. I have been but a short time a resident in this city, but your father will, I think, remember Mr. Martin Krider, of Chicago, who is my uncle..

Trusting that you will pardon the liberty I am taking, and grant me a position among your gentleman acquaintances, I am,

Very respectfully,

H.T. KRIDER

WILL YOU BE MINE

DEAR SARAH:

As  my duties will not allow me to see you in person for some time, I feel unable to refrain any longer from asking a question which has lingered on my lips for months. My actions have been such that you cannot have failed to see my intentions, and, as they have not been rebuked, I have concluded my feelings are reciprocated.  As you are aware, I am alone, having no relatives, and I desire to have a companion—one of home I shall use my every effort to make happy, and who will in turn do likewise. Will you be that companion?  I have not taken this step without first considering your happiness, that being as much to me as my own. My business is sufficiently profitable to support us, and I know I can give you as comfortable a home as the one from which I desire to take you. And I assure you that, unless I was sure of being able to keep sorrow as far away from you in the future as it has been in the past, I would not ask you to be mine.

I await what I trust will be a favorable reply.

Sincerely yours,

HARVEY STONE

Susanna’s note: I have many more lessons in flirting from  The Mystery of Love, Courtship and Marriage Explained. Just check the site archives on the right. 

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Victorian Lessons: How to Flirt with Gloves, the Importance of Ring Position, and Writing Love Letters that Get You Married (or not)

Good heavens, it has been months since I last visited The Mystery of Love, Courtship and Marriage Explained by Henry J Wehman, published in 1890.  How my heart has missed its missives of love and longing. Tonight, I learned why I had so much trouble getting dates in my early 20s. It seems I was wearing my ring the wrong finger! I was telegraphing to men of wealth and station my intention to die unmarried.  Not only that, I was constantly biting the tips of my gloves not knowing that I was telling gentlemen to go away. I should been striking my gloves over my shoulder inviting men to follow me.

So, let us learn the proper ways to telegraph love with glove and rings, as well as how to write love letters to strangers, inconstant lovers and heavenly angels that you fell in love with at first sight.

Most of the images in this post come from Cassell’s Family Magazine.

Let’s get started….

Love’s Telegraph

If a gentleman wants a wife, he wears a ring on the first finger of the left hand; if he is engaged, he wears it on the second finger; if married, on the third; and on the fourth if he never intends to be married. When a lady is not engaged, she wears a hoop or diamond on her first finger; if engaged, on the second; if married, on the third and on the fourth if she intends to die unmarried. When a gentleman presents a fan, flower, or trinket to a lady with the left hand, this on his part is an overture of regard; should she receive it with the left hand, it is considered as an acceptance of his esteem; but if with the right hand, it is a refusal of the offer. Thus, by a few simple tokens explained by rule, the passion of love is expressed and through the medium of the telegraph, the most timid and diffident man may, without difficulty, communicate his sentiments of regard to a lady, and, in case his offer should be refused, avoid experiencing the mortification of an explicit refusal.

Letter to a young lady after seeing her in a store:

Madam:

 You will perhaps think it extraordinary that a young man should take the liberty of addressing you without even the formality of a previous introduction. I have to apologize, therefore, and I hope that you will at least forgive me if you cannot confer the favor which I would ask.  I have so far seen only through the window of ——‘s store, bit cannot explain to you how great a desire I feel that I should enjoy the very great pleasure of your acquaintance. I might perhaps obtain this, if you allowed me to do so, by means of some mutual friend, but I know of none. There is no alternative for me but a direct request, and I thought it more respectful to make it by letter. It would at this moment, be impertinent to allude further to the great admiration which I have for you, in begging you to give me an opportunity of introducing myself, and I must add of satisfying you of my respectability. I feel that I have already run the risk of causing you annoyance. To have done so would have been a source of deep regret.  I trust that you will be so kind as to give me even the slightest intimation of your wishes, and you may depend upon my intruding no further without your permission.

Respectfully,

HERBERT WHITE

Her reply

Sir:

Your note has very much surprised me. You are so entirely unknown to me that cannot guess what my correspondent’s appearance even may be. Under these circumstances I must decline saying more than that I can neither refuse nor comply with your request. I think indeed that I ought at once to refuse it.

ROSE

From a lady to an inconstant lover:

Dear C—-:

It is with great reluctance that I enter upon a subject which has given me great pain, and upon which silence has become impossible if I would preserve my self-respect. You cannot but be aware that I have just reason for saying that you have much displeased me. You have apparently forgotten what is due to me, circumstanced as we are, thus far at least.  You cannot suppose that I can tamely see you disregard my feelings, by conduct toward other ladies from which I should naturally have the right to expect  you to abstain. I am not so vulgar a person as to be jealous.  When there is cause to infer changed feelings, or unfaithfulness to promises of constancy, jealousy is not the remedy. What the remedy is I need not say – we both of us have it in our own hands. I am sure you will agree with me that we must come to some understanding by which the future shall be governed. Neither you nor I can bear a divided allegiance.  Believe me that I write more in sorrow than in anger. You have made me very unhappy, and perhaps thoughtlessly. But it will take much to reassure me of your unaltered regard

Yours truly

EMMA

Love at First Sight:

To Miss Rose Terry:

It is but a few short months since we met, and yet in that time I have come to regard you more in the light of a heavenly angel than an earthly mortal, and in thee, dearest, I have found the ideal I have so long pictured as the woman I could love and cherish for a lifetime. I have neither wealth or station to offer thee, but instead an honest, loyal and lasting love, which you will increase tenfold in brightness and glory if you will accept it. This is sudden – too sudden, I fear – but my excuse is the hope of winning a sweet, gracious wife, who alone can make me happy. Write me at the earliest moment, I beseech thee, dearest love, and tell me if I am to be the happiest man in all the world. With feelings of the highest esteem and the deepest, most loyal love, I am thine.

JAMES LEON

See more posts from The Mystery of Love, Courtship and Marriage Explained:

More Victorian Love Letters and the Basics of Postage Stamp Flirtation

Valentine’s Day Edition: The Language of Flowers, How to Write a Victorian Love Letter, and Parasol Flirtations

How to Write Victorian Love Letters

Handkerchief and Fan Flirtations

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More Victorian Love Letters and the Basics of Postage Stamp Flirtation

It’s been two long weeks since I last posted an excerpt from The Mystery of Love, Courtship and Marriage Explained by Henry J Wehman.  I feel a sadness in my heart that only a love letter from Mr. Wehman can dispel.  Gentle reader, I have a terrible confession to make: I have missed a very important detail in the art of Victorian love letter writing and that is postage stamp flirtation. My letters might have said, “I love you,” but my straight up and down stamps said, “Goodbye, sweetheart.”  Luckily, Mr. Wehman has set me straight on this count.

Once again, I have included images from Cassell’s Family Magazine published in 1886, four years before the The Mystery of Love. I just adore Cassell’s.  In the very near future, I will include one of its short stories on this blog.

 

Excerpt of sample love letters from  The Mystery of Love, Courtship and Marriage Explained:

From a poor young man to a rich young lady whom he had only seen but a few times:

 Dear Miss W— ;

 You will no doubt be surprised to receive a letter from one who is almost a total stranger to you, but I hope you will pardon me for my boldness when I tell you how truly, how deeply I love you. Perhaps prudence would dictate that I should, for the present, at least, withhold this confession, but my heart is impatient and will not be quieted until I have made you acquainted with its secret. I am aware that the suddenness of my passion may awaken the suspicion that it is only a shallow and transient feeling, but I am sure that you have won my whole heart, and what more could you do were those charms of yours, which have so easily captivated me, to shine before me for years? Love is not a vegetable that it must grow nor is it a thing of logic that it must depend upon sequences and conclusions; but it is a passion of the soul, which may, like thought, be born in an instant, especially in the presence of beauty and accomplishments such as you possess.

All I expect in answer to this, I fear, imprudent note, is some intimation that I may dare to hope that I do not live without hope. Give me but an opportunity to prove myself worthy of the infinite happiness which your love would bestow, and there is no impossibility I would not achieve to obtain it. Indeed, since the first night I saw you, the perfection and the constellation of charms that shine in your person have filled my heart and brain so full that I can do nothing but think of you all day and dream of you all night. I cannot imagine any happiness for myself in the future which is not identified with you.

If your heart is yet free, and if you do not find objections to answering this note, I entreat you to deal with me with the same direct frankness that I have used in addressing you.

I am, with great respect and devoted love,

Henry B—.

Continue reading “More Victorian Love Letters and the Basics of Postage Stamp Flirtation”

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Valentine’s Day Edition: The Language of Flowers, How to Write a Victorian Love Letter, and Parasol Flirtations

Once again, I am excerpting from what is becoming my favorite book, The Mystery of Love, Courtship and Marriage Explained, 1890. Using my Photoshop skills, I merged a passage about the language of flowers with a floral graphic from Cassell’s Family Magazine, 1885 . I hope you will enjoy this special Valentine’s Day present from me to you. 

 

Continue reading “Valentine’s Day Edition: The Language of Flowers, How to Write a Victorian Love Letter, and Parasol Flirtations”