It is a curious fact that no woman thinks less of a man for his having had his vain infatuations, and that all men think less of a woman if she has loved without response.
Therefore, it behoves her to destroy no evidence that the other man, not herself, was the discarded party.
But woe unto the man who retains old love-letters, or other tokens of dead loves and perished desires.
Few men could be guilty of showing or repeating the contents of another man's love-letters. Women who are models of virtue and goodness have been known to make public the letters written a man in earlier years by another object of his affections. I have to my personal knowledge known a woman to place before the eyes of a third person, lines written evidently in the very heart's blood of a former sweetheart of her husband-words the man believed he had destroyed with other letters, more than a score of years before. Imagine what the feelings of that early sweetheart, now a happy and beloved wife, would be, did she know the words written so long ago were spread before cold and critical eyes, and discussed by two people who could have no comprehension of the conditions and circumstances which led to their expression.
Because I know otherwise tender-hearted and good women are capable of such acts, I am glad you have obeyed my wish of seven years ago, and that all proofs of your boyish infatuation for an older woman are destroyed. You say you have told the girl you love that you once were foolishly fond of me, and that I helped you to higher ideals of womanhood and life.
That is wise and well, since you found her to be broad and sensible enough to share such a confidence. But had she seen your written words to me and my reply, it would have been less agreeable to her than to hear your own calm recital of the now dead passion.
Words written in a state of high-wrought intensity retain a sort of phosphoric luminosity, like certain decaying substances, and even after the passage of years, and when the emotions which gave them expression are dead and forgotten, they seem to emit life and feeling.
Burn your bridges as you walk along the highways of romance to St. Benedict's land.
Since you compliment me by saying I have helped you to higher ideals of life, will you allow me to give you a little advice regarding your treatment of your wife?
You have every reason to know that I have been a happy and well-loved wife of the man of my choice. You know that I have neither sought nor accepted the attentions of other men when they crossed the danger-line lying between friendship and love.