February, a winter month.  The month of Valentine's Day. How better to celebrate than with the love poems of the "Poetess of Passion" herself. Several of this month's poems are chosen from Ella's book "Poems of Love" and the prose section is a chapter entitled "Love Letters."

     President Abraham Lincoln's birthday is also celebrated in February and in 1909 while in Jamaica that February day, Ella was called upon by a Mr. Hadley to help write a poem to go on the menu for a special dinner honoring the one hundredth anniversary of Lincoln's birth. She entitled her small verse "Lincoln, February 12, 1809-1909."

     Another event of February is Mardi Gras, the celebration just before the beginning of Lent. And what greater place to celebrate the festival than in New Orleans! Ella was there in February 1885.

     One of our EWW eSociety members recently mentioned the value of Out of Print booksellers available on the web. I've certainly enjoyed purchasing several items from some of them over the years and it's also a great way to compare costs for particular titles. You can find a list of some of these booksellers on our web site at http://192.211.16.13/individuals/edwardsr/ella/ellasoc.htm#op

     I'd like to thank Ruth White for her contributions this past month as well. She sent me copies of several old newspaper articles which have been reprinted on our eSociety mailing list and added to our web site. 

     This seems to be a new year of changes. In addition to our web site moving to Northeastern State University in the next month or two, our eSociety group has also moved due to Yahoo purchasing eGroups. You can now find our eSociety at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ellawheelerwilcox

Joyfully,

Rich

It would be interesting to know who wrote the first love letter, and what he said.  For, of course, it was he. 
    It is an odd fact, that while men are far more cautious than women in signing their names to business documents, they compromise themselves on paper at Cupid's command much more frequently. 
    A man scrutinizes with great care everything which he writes for legal purposes before he appends his signature thereto; but he signs his name boldly to reams of wild, extravagant utterances where love stands at his elbow, and hurries it off with a special delivery stamp. 
    Fine sport it proves sometimes for Cupid when the letters he has instigated are produced in court and read to an interested and jeering audience.  A letter which causes the hearts of two people to palpitate when written and read usually stirs the risibles of everybody else who hears it. 
    A love letter, like a kiss, is news to be shared only by the two interested parties. 
    It is interesting to note the progressive addresses in a love affair carried on by correspondence.  The first letter addressed to Miss Mollie Blank begins "Miss Blank, Dear Miss;" then "My Dear Miss Blank," "My Dear Mollie," "Dear Mollie," "Darling Mollie," "Darling!" 
    There is no fashion which can dictate the writing of a love letter.  As the tones of human voice vary, so will love letters be varied by individual peculiarities of style, while all carry one message and tell one tale.  The striking similarity of expression in all love letters does not lessen their value.  Because the apple blossoms have ever the same color and perfume, they are none the less beautiful with each recurring spring. 
    Some men can talk love by the hour, but cannot write a word of it.  Others are dumb in presence of the beloved one, but pour their hearts out on paper. 
    It is curious to note what absolute nonsense often drops from the pens of brilliant men and women when they are in love.  It proves the sincerity of their passion far more than do studied literary efforts.  It is not well to place too much confidence in the flowery and extravagant epistles of a romantic man of literary tendencies.  His imagination often runs away with him when he takes his pen in hand. A simple "I love you" from the pen of a practical business man carries more weight than a volume of poetic phrases written by the dreamer. 
    There have been men known to compose their love letters on a type machine.  The less said of them, the better.  They deserve capital punishment--to be shot until they are dead by Cupid's arrows. 
    It is a great art to know how to write an effective love letter.  But it cannot be learned save in love's school. 
    To a person of any intuition and discernment, a letter conveys the reader's true mood.  A man may be such a skilled actor that he can say "I love you" with convincing effect, when he does not love at all. 
   But if he writes the words from an empty heart, they convey emptiness.  Written at white heat, from a full heart, they leap from the paper like electric sparks.  The trouble with many women is, they illuminate the pages of a man's letter with the light of their own affections, and give the man the credit of the effort produced. 
    Sometimes a love letter proves a death blow to passion. 
    I knew a very young girl who worshipped a handsome lover, of whom her parents disapproved, for a period of two years.  Then, during a separation, he wrote his first love epistle.  So illiterate and ungrammatical was it that the girl's love died before she finished its perusal. 
    There are few things in life more unpleasant to encounter than old love letters full of ardent protestations of undying affection, exchanged by the people who have grown absolutely indifferent to each other. 
    A love letter is like a strawberry shortcake--delicious when it comes fresh from the oven, nauseating when it has stood twenty-four hours in the ice chest. 

Every-day thoughts in prose and verse. by Ella Wheeler Wilcox 
Chicago: W. B. Conkey Company, 1901.