UNROMANTIC WOOERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 263, 5 November 1932, Page 9 (Supplement)

UNROMANTIC WOOERS.

ODD LOVE LETTERS. , TWO UNSENTIMENTAIi DIVINES NO TIME FOE BILLING AND COOING. Was there ever a. lover so unromantic as George WMtefield, the famous divine, who wrote thus to the parents of the girl he wished to marry:— "This comes like Abraham's servant to Rebekah'a relations to ask whether you ■f.Tiinlr your daughter is a proper person to engage in such an undertaking. If so, whether you are pleased to give me leave to propose marriage to her. You need not be afraid of sending me a refusal; for, I bless God, if I know aught of my own heart, I am free from that foolish passion which the world calls love. *I write only because I believe that it .is the will of God that I should alter my state; but your denial will fully convince me that your daughter is not the person appointed by God for me." When he had received the parents' permission to approach the young lady, iWhitefield wrote to her: "I make no profession to you. The passionate expressions which' casual lovers use, ought, I think, to be avoided. I can only promise to keep my matrimonial vow." The girl, possessing more -spirit than her parents, gave the unsentimental divine a wellrmerited lesson in manners. Not less unromantic was Dean Swift's proposal to Miss Waring. It took the form of an ultimatum calculated to scare and disgust the most amiable of women. "Are you in a condition," he wrote, "to manage domestic affairs with an income of less than three hundred pounds a year? Will you be ready to engage in those methods I shall direct for the improvement of your mind, so as to make us entertaining company for each other, without being miserable when we are neither visiting nor visited? "Cleanliness in person and competence in fortune are all I look for. I singled you out at first from the rest of women, and I expect not to be used as a corilmon lover." What Miss Waring's answer was to this "laying down of the law" we do,not know. We know, however, that she refused to become the wife of so callous and unchivalrous a wooer. Dr. Abernethy, famous almost as much •for his rude manners as for his surgical skill, had seen Miss Anna Threlfall only once when he made up his mind that she would bo desirable as a wife. He had no time to waste on billing and cooing; so he wrote the following businesslike offer of his hand:— "Dear Madam, —I am much too busy a man to have time for love-making; but I should like to marry you, and shall be glad to learn your decision before the end of the week. To the young woman of his choice a blunt and undiplomatic lover wrote: — "You're none so young as you once were. You're not much to look at, but a good worker. You'd better take me. I'm willing to have you, and you mightn't get another chance." Rowland Hill begged a lady to accept him as "a poor worm in the character of a minister of Christ"; and another "poor worm" wrote thus to the lady who had won his heart: — "I am convinced that I could never make you happy. The demotion of my life would not recompense you for the sacrifices you would make in marrying me, but if you think otherwise, in pity let me know by return."