Perfect Behavior :: :: University of Virginia Library

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:

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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 7½ miles from W. to E. and 5½ 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 Heloise, 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

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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.