on love letters

(via Brain Pickings)

I have never received a love letter. I have, though, been peed on twice by two separate three-year-old boys (must be some kind of weird territorial thing?); and the unwitting inspiration for the Kill Caroline Club (must be some weird way for first-grade boys to work through their budding sexual angst?); and the subject of an ode exalting my excellent reading skills (they were, in fact, the best in my second-grade class).

But, no. I’ve never received a love letter.

Unfortunately, I am a diehard romantic at heart, so my never having been the subject of such a missive – or, actually, my not being born during a period in which these correspondences were regarded as normal, rather than stalkerish – makes me feel a little forlorn, and a little nostalgic for a time and a feeling I’ve never experienced. What must it feel like to be the subject of a feverish outpouring of love and devotion by some poor wretched soul? I imagine you’d feel like Pattie Boyd, or Juliet, or at least a Disney princess. I pride myself on being hyper-independent maybe to the point where it’s becoming a problem, social-life-wise. But us sovereign ladies can still be suckers for sap. And it’s always nice to hear – or to read – that you are loved.

This mid-nineteenth-century letter, which I came across today on Brain Pickings, is exactly the kind of letter I’d want to get. It’s pretty ingenious, and I admire this young man’s utter cheek, the pure virtuosity of which extends across centuries of cultural evolution to resonate today. I really cherish these kinds of social artifacts, which confirm that our alien-seeming ancestors were, in fact, as real and sarcastic as we are.

I know that this suitor’s impudence could have translated, in real life, into little-shit status. But my poet’s heart chooses to believe that the audacious W. Goff was a good guy – and that Miss M. recognized that, and responded accordingly.