Love, Taki - tribute to the dying art of love letters - Column

ONE of the great pleasures of my life is writing love letters. Especially when under the influence. When my London flat burned down five years ago, the few love epistles I've received in my life were reduced to cinders, and I considered that my greatest loss. The demise of the old-fashioned love letter is a loss romantics the world over--however few of us are left--will always mourn.

A love letter must be among the best things in life. It costs the price of a stamp, it takes some effort and a little time, but the result can be everlasting. My late father was a great Casanova and connoisseur of the fairer sex, and used to turn out such letters effortlessly. He once admitted to a friend of his that the best love note he ever received simply stated, "I do love you." Love letters do not have to be long.

Alas, in the barbaric times we live in today, people prefer the world's most annoying instrument after television, the telephone. The intrusive contraption demands no concentration, and therefore no commitment. Mind you, we are living in litigious times, and lawyers counsel, "Don't write it down."

But I do. I began the practice about 25 years ago. I was drunk and feeling the pangs of unrequited love, so I sat down and tried the following: "Dear X, There's a marvelous line in Romeo and Juliet when Romeo, having avenged Mercutio's death, is advised to flee Verona. 'But Heaven is here, where Juliet lives,' he cries. However sudden this may sound, this is how I've felt about you since the first moment I met you. Love, Taki."

To my great delight and surprise, it worked. Miss X saw me in a different light and things went smoothly for a while. After some time, I tried it again. On someone else, of course. Now before any of you cry foul, I don't think there's anything wrong with repeating love letters. It's the message that counts, not the wording. And the message is that one's in love. Some might say that repetition dilutes the meaning. But not for me. I have used what I refer to as the R-and-J letter countless times. About ten years ago I got caught and became the laughing stock of London.

Two girls were discussing yours truly, and one said that she thought I was a drunken playboy. "Yes, but he writes beautiful love letters," said the other. Then, as girls tend to do, they compared theirs. Only the name at the top had been changed. They both started to laugh, word got out, and people have been laughing at me ever since.

Women, far more than men, are the victims of the love letter's demise. They like to be wooed, and nothing is better for courtship than a love letter. Robert Browning won Elizabeth Barrett's heart through the written word, not the spoken one. Ironically, F. Scott Fitzgerald's love letters are not at all impressive. Poor Scott, was he too shy? but shyness should not inhibit anyone when writing. I guess Scott simply didn't know his way around women.

Some years ago, an Italian friend of mine living in New York asked me to help him write to a Hollywood actress he was pursuing. Knowing she was an idiot, I borrowed a bit, without credit, from Keats and Byron. My friend was really impressed. He thought I had genius in me. Later we went to a remote house in Tuscany, where books were unavailable, and he asked me to write a quick one for him, as the star was arriving in Rome. I wrote one of my own creation, and he complained that it was good but not my best. They are no longer together, but it wasn't because of my poetry. Actually, she told him she preferred the one I'd written in Italy, without the Keats and Byron in it. Then and there I saw with perfect clarity what is wrong with Hollywood.

What is truly sad about the death of the love letter is that an entire aspect of romantic expression known to our grandparents has now vanished. Back in the good old days, people got to know each other through words rather than through deeds. Syntax rather than sex. Relationships were more stable as a result. Today, in a prurient society where people expose themselves in the most ludicrous manner, no one writes from the heart. When modern lovers send each other messages it is in the form of a greeting card, the picture being more important than the words scribbled behind it. Romantics of the world unite! We have nothing to lose but the price of a stamp.

COPYRIGHT 1994 National Review, Inc.
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