A NEW ZEALAND ARTIST and HER WORK

Ladies' Mirror, Volume I, Issue 9, 1 March 1923, Page 18

A NEW ZEALAND ARTIST and HER WORK

by P.E.N.

LOVE-LETTERS and MODERN WOMAN

"nPHE modern man and the modern woman cannot write love-letters ; they have lost the art,” said a friend of the writer. At that moment someone interrupted our conversation, and I went home, pondering over what my friend had said. On my bookshelf reposed a volume of the love-letters of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, and I read them again and sighed. My friend was right. The modern man and the modern woman cannot express their thoughts on paper, and one is forced to conclude that it must be because they lack the thoughts to express. Love has become a thing of comradeship and such rough intimacy that the man no longer dreams of his beloved as something delicate, ethereal, something which is so mysterious that it baffles him; the woman of to-day is a plain, outspoken creature, with little mystery, and there is nothing to encourage dreams such as the lovers of the past were wont to enjoy. Famous Letters The love-letters of the famous poets were many, for during their courtship Robert Browning wrote 284, and Elizabeth Barrett penned 287. Because all the world loves a lover as well as great literature, they were sold for £6550, which works out at exactly £ll 9s. each letter. The first inspired note which Robert penned to the lady of his dreams began: “I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett ... I can give a reason for my faith ... the fresh, strange music, the affluent language, the exquisite pathos . . . but in thus addressing myself to you, your own self, and for the first time, my feeling rises altogether . . . and I love you, too.” Elizabeth Barrett was glad, and in her answer she wrote: “I thank you, dear Mr. Browning, from the bottom of my heart . . . Such a letter from such a hand ... is very dear to me . . . This is in my heart to say to you— I say it.” Could any modern woman hope to achieve such tenderness or such a spirit? It would hardly be possible that it could flow from a fountain pen to a writing pad upon which must drop the ashes from my lady’s cigarette. The Marriage Eve I turned over the pages until I came to the last one, written on the eve of their marriage, which concludes : “God bless you and strengthen you, my ever dearest, dearest. I will not trust myself to speak of my feelings for you—worship well belongs to such fortitude. One struggle more . . . Write to me one word more." Elizabeth wrote the answer for which her adorer longed. “By to-morrow at this time I shall have you only, to love me—my beloved. . . . Your letters to me I take with me . . . they could not be left. Is this my last letter to you, ever dearest? Oh, if I loved you less ... a little less.” The love-letters of Carlyle. Leigh Hunt, Keats, and Shelley all show us that we modern women have lost much. Love is a fragrant thing, and however delightful the twentieth century friendship may be, it leaves us with a sense of something lacking. The men of a generation ago were seldom casual: the man of to-day is so accustomed to the woman of today that he takes her for granted, and you cannot reverence or pen wonderful letters to one you are permitted to call “old bean.”