Here is your Valentine’s Day post. It comes, via LitHub, from Are You Prepared for the Storm of Love Making?: Letters of Live and Lust from the White House.
A taste:
When a man writes a letter to a woman he is in love with, he generally has one purpose: to persuade her to love him. There are many ways to do this. Some are clever; some are not. Perhaps the clumsiest in this section is in Ulysses S. Grant’s letter to Julia Dent. He drew twenty-one long dashes on the paper and wrote, “Read these blank lines just as I intend them, and they will express more than words.”
Well, of course Julia wanted words more than dashes, but she had to specifically ask him to express his affections—and, eventually, she received them. You’ll find those in this section, too.
At the other extreme might be John Tyler, who expressed himself in language as flowery as any Southern gentleman of the 1810s would: “From the first moment of my acquaintance with you, I felt the influence of genuine affection; but now, when I reflect upon the sacrifice which you make to virtue and to feeling, by conferring your hand upon me, who have nothing to boast of but an honest and upright soul, and a heart of purest love, I feel gratitude superadded to affection by you.”
It worked for Tyler. In fact, it worked twice, because after his first wife passed away, he wooed and won another. His second wife, Julia Gardiner, was thirty years younger than Tyler, and in time they had seven children.
Read the rest here.