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How to Write Love Letters : LETTER III. Proposal to a Schoolmistress.

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LETTER III. Proposal to a Schoolmistress.

Beloit, Wisconsin, November 18, 1913.

Mr Dear Miss Birch:

In asking permission to avow the deep admiration with which I am inspired toward you, I think I may al- most address you as my dearest teacher, for of all your pupils my affection is the strongest, and the lesson which you have taught my heart will remain there forever. I have learned to love you. I have learned that without a return of that love I am without instructor or guide. No expelled scholar could feel more badly than I, if I did not hope that you will listen to me without displeasure. Joyful indeed shall I be if you will accept from me the true homage which would strive to render your future one long and happy recess.

But my dearest teacher will think my letter savors of levity, and that I need correction if I proceed in this strain. Though I am not conscious of levity, therefore, but of precisely the reverse, I will adopt words of more serious import, and without any attempt at mere pleasantry. Plainly, then, my dear Miss Birch -- would that I might say my dearest Anna -- I love you very dearly, and cannot contain my secret any longer, if indeed it be to you a secret. I love you for your charms, for your mental beauty, for your accomplishments. I love you more than all -- because I love you. I have no right to ask whether you love me, but I will ask, can you do both? My sole ambition is first to win you, and second to deserve you. I ask you to accept a true and honorable devotion that can know no change. You do not know, you cannot dream (unless in the blessed case of your having loved) how entirely, how unalterably, my whole being is absorbed in the one aspiration, that you will not reject me.

I could write to you volumes of what my hopes are, and of what my feelings will ever be; but you shall not be troubled with so much writing upon what may be, oh how I trust not, a wearisome subject. Once again, and once for all, I place myself in your hands, with the most ardent attachment that it is possible to experience and that it is impossible to describe. I remain ever yours, as you will let me,

Clarence Stedman.

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