"BLEATING LAMBKIN" AS LETTER WRITER.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 147, 22 June 1901, Page 3 (Supplement)

"BLEATING LAMBKIN" AS LETTER WRITER.

"TILE LOVE LETTERS OF AN

ENGLISHMAN."

A PRIG'S BREACH OF PROMISE.

(From Our London Correspondent}

LONDON, May XO.

Although "Willie" MeDaniel declared in the witness box that ha was not a Scotchman, he certainly; displayed in his courting- of "Maggie" O'Connell all the canniness and lack of humour generally attributed to Scots. Willie was a clerk in the Scottish Education Department, with, an income of £120 a year. He was 35, and Maggie, a bright Irish girl, 10 years his junior. They met at a friend's in Highgate in 1897, and were mutually attracted. Willie called three or four times a week, and when the. lady left for Liverpool wrote "My dear Maggie," which, however, on her return to London, was modified to "My dear Miss."' Eventually Willie let himself go a 9 far as to write: "Some people call ma a wolf, but I always feel like a lambkin," to himself "Your bleating; friend," and to send these lines:—

Two things greater than all things are, The first is love, the second war; And since we know not how war may] prove, Heart of my heart, let us talk of lov«.

But while the lambkin cast sheep's eyes at his sweetheart, and was ready enough to talk of love, lie was not so ready to talk of marriage. So in Sept., 1898, Maggie's father wrota to Willie asking his intentions. Tha reply displayed not the passion, of tha lover but the cold, pausing caution of the Education Department. "I am sorry," replied the swain, "I cannot comply with your demand. Indeed before doing so there are so many things to be considered and explained. I think, too, that as the letters are liable to lead to gross misunderstanding, it will always be best fos me to give a verbal reply." However, after a meeting "at thei corner of Prince of Wales Road, near the undertaker's." Willie, early in 1899, at last popped the question, but asked his fiancee to keep the matter secret from her parents for threa months. He thawed so far as to address her as "My own dearest Maggie," and to write to her at Swanage, saying "Please give my love to the sea and place a fond kiss on my uncle's grave." He even proposed a cycling honeymoon in August, 1900, in Scotland. But this serious prig couldn't stand chaff. When he was in Ireland he got this sportive letter:! "My dear Willie,—How are you existing in the land of the uncivilised? I trust yon have not been taken for an Irishman; I feel certain it would be your death-blow. Please bring me a spray of the dear little shamrock. I am so longing to see dear old Ireland. I wonder you care to marry me if I am only an Irish girl.—Yours, etc., Maggie." He asked his fiancee to "withdraw it" as it was "scarcely a fit companion" to her other letters. In March 1900 the first of a series of quarrels occurred ,and thereafter the lovers kept breaking off and then renewing their engagement, Willie posing throughout as a righteous, injured person. In Liverpool she accused him of flirting with her cousins, and in. another tiff she tapped him on the hand with a comb. He said it was a brush, and when she retorted "comb," he replied, "That seems an indirect way of calling me a liar." Two more rows led to sanctimonious letters from William, and warm-hearted replies from his lady love in this strain:! "Dearest Willie,—Do let us be frienda again. Will you not forgive me for any pain I have caused by my foolish obstinacy and temper? I was very] cross over that horrid night If I did not love you as much I should not be jealous of you. Dearest, do let us bo1 once mfcre all that we were before the quarreL"

But the lover in William was being1 overpowered slowly but surely by the departmental official. He wrote charging her with breaking off the engagement four times Jn six weeks* and with domineering over him. He tried to throw all the onus of breaking off the engagement on the lady and sent her the following characteristic epistle: "I have again thought well over the matter, and am still of opinion that our marriage would be one of endless quarrels and wretchedness. As, however, you have demean* ed yourself by using threats over me, and intend having me up for breach: of promise, I wrote to say that I would sooner than gx> th-rcragli the or* deal, submit. I therefore am willing to fulfil the engagement, if you wish1 to renew it. Though I will undertake, should you impose the penalty of marriage upon me, to perform all the duties laid upon the husband towards the wife by the State, but I can promise nothing more." Maggie, in a touching reply, declared that she "really and dearly* cared for him." Her conclusion was certainly justified: "As to my selfish: and domineering spirit, I think, Willie, you could not have displayed more selfishness than you have done in your letter. After having written all the worst things you could think of, you end by saying I nave only myself to blame. I think much might be said regarding your faults also. No, dearest Willie, I do not" see any, ground for our engagement to discontinue. Your feelings towards me cannot have changed so completely in this short time. Let us try and be happy again. I feel sure still that we shall get on well." • William, however, was now entirely the departmental clerk who dockets and mimites, and his rejoinder was a tabulated list of quotations from her letters with his" replies opposite. At last there was a final flutter outside Highgate Station, and Willie, after accusing Maggie of calling him a bar, turned on his heel in high dudgeon and walked away. A lawyers letter closed the correspondence, and* £££ last Tuesday awarded the J*«^gj £40 general damages him "doubly criminal Illliil SnlESy «« the day that he be. JS tSe "Love letters of an Englishman«"