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The Perfect Love Letter


By Sune Christian Pedersen

In the 18th century love letters became a preferred way for people in the upper circles to make advances. Mastering the finically written love letters was a difficult work of art. Manuals of “Etiquette” for letter writers were an invaluable help to the insecure – and are today an exciting source of the conception of the perfect love letter of that time.


“Happy the Man who has a Virtuous Woman”
The earliest letter books – letter-writing manuals – originates from 16th-century France where large collections of especially fine and elegant letters were published for entertainment, help, and inspiration. The letter examples were often supplemented with practical advice, e.g. how to address various persons of rank – “Sir”, “Your Honour”, “My Lord”, which the readers of the later Danish letter books could learn.

The first letter book in Danish was “A New and Noble Form Book” by clergyman and Court Astrologer Niels Heldvad (1564-1634) published in 1624, the same year as the Danish postal service was founded. Heldvad’s book appealed mainly to people writing official letters, but it also contained a few examples of letters of proposal. They were not letters of proposal in the modern sense of the word as they were clearly addressed to the male head of the woman's family:

“Happy the man who has a virtuous woman because he lives twice as long. A housewifely woman is a pleasure to her husband and makes him a delightful, peaceful life. A virtuous woman is a noble gift. A friendly woman pleases her husband and if she is good and sensible with him, she gladdens his heart, etc. These and more such merry words and reminders have also now touched and moved my heart to step into the footprints of the old and therefore try the passion, friendship, and love etc. of marriage.”

With this male chauvinist introduction – seen from a present-day point of view – a good letter of proposal should begin. The woman should be “virtuous”, “housewifely”, and “friendly”. To base a marriage on love and tender emotion was of minor importance at a time when social position, status, and economy were inseparable from family and birth. Marriage was a way to make alliances within the high classes that were able to and could afford to write letters of proposal. It was simply too important a matter for the family to leave it up to the young people’s own emotions. Love would have to come in second.

Written Compliments
During the 18th century an urban letter culture developed. Courtiers and the bourgeoisie used the letters to exchange invitations, “observe politeness, and say something which is both courteous and shrewd as well”, as Johannes Finkenhagen put it in the preface of his letter book from 1749. The main function of these convivial letters recalls actually that of the mobile phone among young people today: To maintain a large circle of acquaintances and constantly assure oneself and one’s surroundings of the presence and strength of these human bonds.

To say something “courteous and shrewd” was not least important in the game between the genders where flattery was a natural part of the communication. In 1742 the writer of letter books J.G.A. Placius gives an example of how a man might begin a love letter:

“Mademoiselle, The incomparable loveliness by which nature has endowed you so abundantly throws everybody who has the good fortune of seeing you into a state of great astonishment. And I would surely be abusing your goodness if I was not praising in proper eulogy what Heaven has granted you in profusion”.

The lionized “Mademoiselle” was probably used to empty, ritual compliments so if she was interested in her wooer, she would in a way have to break the rules of the game:

“Monsieur, From your honourable letter I have modestly noticed with how much praise you endow the humble gifts I may have been given by nature although I know that the case is quite different. I therefore ascribe it to your goodness by which you have also so pleasantly revealed your attention to me. I consider all of this a courteous jest since I am not unfamiliar with men’s habit of vexing women in this way, but I assure you that I may esteem your person more seriously”.

If the girl replied in this way, contact had been established. The fictitious correspondence indicates that women had a say in the love life of the 18th century. It “was not appropriate” for women to start a love correspondence, but they could at least say no; however, hardly when it became a question of marriage. The love letters were a game that took place before the seriousness of marriage; accepted, but still clandestinely, if we shall believe the letter books.

“Love Finds Means of Everything”
It could be a crucial problem to have the letters delivered in a way not causing suspicion from third parties. In 1742 the postal service was not geared to function as an anonymous “postillon d’amour” for courting letter writers. Letters could be delivered between most domestic towns and abroad, but once the letter had landed in the post office, it would stay there until one picked it up oneself or had it delivered after a good while for extra payment, the so-called carrier money.

In the towns where most letter writers lived, you had to deliver your mail yourself, and if you did not have servants to do it for you, you might as well give it up – especially if you were a bashful lover, because “nobody has more observers than a couple in love and no matter how secretly they begin, there will be words between them, and everybody will want to know how far they have proceeded. It is therefore necessary to forward your letters with maximum cautiousness”, Placius writes.

Could you trust that your servants would not gossip, or would you have to find another “postillon d’amour”? Placius had no answer, but writes: “Whatever trickery the lovers may use to make sure that their letters are delivered safely, I shall leave to their own invention as love finds means of everything, even if an Argus [an all-seeing guardian with a hundred eyes from Greek mythology] was keeping watch over it.

Natural Letters?
In the middle of the 18th century letter fashion changed: Now the letters should be written naturally, based on real emotions and without empty phrases. C.F. Gellert’s letter book from 1762 was a showdown with its predecessors also with regard to love letters. “There is a jolly way of talking which is in its peculiarity seemly for friendship and love”, he writes,“It comes rather from the bottom of the heart than from an abundance of wit and spirit. It is not as ingenious as it is naïve. One speaks one’s candid opinion with some carelessness which seems to forget order, but is, nevertheless, pleasing because it wells from a happy and always delighted heart”.

The letter examples of Gellert and his followers seem, however, still very artificial and strained from a modern point of view. The wit of the letter was as necessary as “the salt in a good soup as otherwise such a love letter becomes as loathsome as the very best dish in which the spices which were supposed to give the flavour have been forgotten; indeed the greater the passion has been, the more ridiculous it becomes”.

As it appears, the writing of a love letter was quite a challenge to the untrained writer. The letter should be neither ingenious, nor banal; it should well from the right feeling – but what constituted that? Love could only be learned from the training one got from moving in the right circles.

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Post & Tele Museum - Købmagergade 37 - Postboks 2053 - DK-1012 København K - Tlf.: (+45) 33 41 09 00 - e-mail: museum@ptt-museum.dk - www.ptt-museum.dk