In my book Birds With Broken Wings I devote one chapter to love letters, one reason being that while many great names suggest themselves in the field of literature there are few in history known for love letters. One of my favorite German proverbs has it, Schoenheit verghet, Tugend besteht. Beauty fades, Virtue remains. Not a little of why love letters are a lost art form. While women attempt to make homes men make wars, and where there is an absence of virtue, barbarism fills the void.

But we have read the books and seen the films in which love letters had great prominence. Even within my own generation love letters were commonly written; but with a coarsening of American society, a loss of virtue, it seems such an art form, and the writing of such letters is a genuine art, has fallen on hard times.

When did the love letters stop? I’ve wondered about this for some time. As a romantic, some would say an anachronistic dinosaur of a bygone era, I love to write to, and about women. Naturally, prudence is required in this and I try to exercise some degree of caution and discretion in doing so. Nevertheless, the writing of such letters should be the natural outcome of real romance and an expression of love for someone.

In discussion of such writing with a number of men and women, it occurred to me that the love letters stop shortly after marriage (if they were written at all). Now why is that? I asked myself. I’m plagued by the habit of asking myself all kinds of disconcerting questions (But my greatest problems often arise from not keeping such questions to myself).

“You’ve Got Mail” was a cute warm and fuzzy film, but while email served the purpose for it and love letters were not being exchanged no email will take the place of an actual, handwritten love letter. A whole art form has been lost to this generation: The writing of love letters. And that is a real tragedy. A woman should have such letters. Furthermore, if the thrill of the chase has been consummated in marriage why shouldn’t the letters continue? But they usually don’t.

I once shared this question of why the love letters do not continue with a married acquaintance. His response: “Why should they? You got the girl.” I knew him well enough to realize at the time he was attempting to make a joke of the question. On the sober side I knew him well enough to realize I had struck a nerve; and one of conscience. But as callous and uncaring his reply how very many men he spoke for.

What woman wouldn’t be delighted to receive acknowledgment of appreciation for her beauty as a woman, of things a man finds special about her? Such a thing should go with the flowers and poetry in homage to beauty, love and romance. A woman has a right to expect such things of a man who truly finds her special, an inspiration to him ever as much and more than a rose or magnificent sunset to the best of poets.

There are women of such natural beauty they make the sun shine in a man’s soul just by looking at them. Such women should naturally inspire the writing of love letters to them. Then there is a beauty of attitude and personality. Such women make others glad to just be around them; they have a gift of making others feel important and needed. Many men will respond to such women irrespective of any deficiencies of physical attractiveness.

There is a beauty of language. Women were created with such distinct voices that like songbirds they make music simply by speaking. But few things can make a beautiful woman ugly so quickly as coarse language that mars her beauty. No man wants a woman to be coarse or vulgar. This so-called equality on such a basis just gives men an excuse to use and abuse such women who think using vulgar language makes them equal to men, mistaking such misguided attempts at “equality” for “value.” A real lady knows she is beyond the pale of such coarse vulgarity. Real gentlemen know and appreciate the difference. When it comes to beauty there is the virtue of character to be considered. As Emerson wrote of it, “There must be romance of character, or the most fastidious exclusion of impertinences will not avail.”

Why do the letters stop? This isn’t just one question with one answer. Obviously it involves the whole complex of the relationships between men and women and the differences between how each feels and thinks; and there is no discounting the corrosive effect upon men and women of a society that seems to have lost sight of the value of those things of virtue distinguishing real ladies and gentlemen. Nevertheless I suggest the writing of love letters as a mechanism to explore the ways in which men and women think; an attempt to understand their own thought processes. And women should, I maintain, receive such letters.

A courtship should definitely be comprised, in part, of such writing. It is to the benefit of both the man and the woman in order to understand each other. The man in the writing, the woman in response to such, should give both a better grasp of the real intentions, the real thinking and feelings in a relationship. But if someone is worried about how such letters may become a problem, even becoming something used against them this speaks more for this present age of “serial monogamy” and shallowness than any sincerity of real love and romance.

Having spent a number of years as a musician and singer, I used to choose a particular woman in the audience and sing to her. A lovely woman once told me after such a time, “Sam, I have never had a man sing to me before.” I was incredulous! Here was a beautiful woman who had never had a man sing to her? This beautiful lady was created to sing to! And no man had ever done so? No wonder women are so starved for romance. Don’t you men know anything about women? Or worse, don’t you care? Questions I find myself increasingly asking. But then in honesty I am forced to confront the truth of that ancient German proverb.