Yours Very Sincerely.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 130, 26 February 1887, Page 3

Yours Very Sincerely.

When charming little oblong billets are brought to us, with just a taiot of perfume clinging to thorn, and pretty hexagonal waxen swale, we are happy enough to find, inside, the pleasant fact recorded that the fair writers are sincerely ours. When letters of sterner form aro opened by us the enveloped of which are etamed by sturdy and vigorous eahgraphy, and are of all hues and smoothness and opacity (trom our old schoolfellow's cream " adhesive " to the ungloseed and commercial " blue "), we are btill greeted with the fame assurance, and are requested to believe our correspondents ours, and always very sincere. We find a little variety to this, ot course. We come across the folks who prefer using adjectives to adverbs, and declaring themselves re&pectiul, or faithful, or obedient, or tr»e ; and we come across the folks' of the sex commonly more impulsive and jn-nnoncee, who pledge themselves (to our entire satisfaction) to be ours in affection or even in love ; but with this small diversity, the gamut -the 801-fa— of signature is done, and though it may be enough, it certainly is no feast. A certain James Howel, who •'flourished" in the reigns of Charles the Firsfc a^d Second, and who moaned out the intermediate Commonwealth in prison, would have thought it intolerably meagre and one ideaed. Indeed, he would have turned Mb Welch nose up as high as his own Plinlimmon, if he had been tied to any such a hliputian tether. In a quantity of his published letters, " Domestic and Forren, written upon Emergent Occußiou," it is quite reproachful to find in what a number of " subscriptions " he riote. He had them —&o to i-peak — pale-piok, rose, red, crimson, fiamo, fire. Heeigned himself "Yours inviolably ;" " l'ourt«, even to love and serve you ;" " Youis whole ;" " Yours intirely ;" " Yours in no Vulgar Way of Friendship ;" "Yours to dispose of ;" "Yours verily and invariably;' "Yours moet humble and enchain'd ;" " Yours to the Altor ; ' " Yours really ;" and — sometimes, in a fever of devotion — three times over, like a colonial advertisement, " Yours ! Yours ! Yours !" If his mood changed, he became " Yours J. H.," simply and confidingly ; " Your entire friend ;" *' Your respectful f on and servitor " (that was to Ben Jonson) ; " Your son and Contiguous Neighbour" (to rare Ben, also) ; " Your most assured and raady Friend to do you Service ;" " Yourown true Servant ;" " Your loving, well wishing Cou3in ;" " Y^our true Sprvitor and Compatriot;" " Your 9 whilo J H. ;" "Yours most ready to be commanded," V"ours to serve and reverence you ;" " Youis easily to be recovered ;" (this was when he and one of his rpd hot friends were having a temporary tiff) ; " Your truly devoted Servant ;" ""Your 30 years' Servant ;" " Yours at your Lordship's Command ;" " The * cry Same ;" " Intire)y yours ;" and "At your Dispose." Surely tongues must be rigid and hearts icy if we measure our friendship now by our professions, and it James Howel applied the same measurament to his ! And the.°e proofs of his ties and his fertility are nothing like all. He would declare himself to be a "serious Servitor," or a "thankful Servitor," or a "thrice humble Servitor," or a "Servitor who was true," or "respectful," or "de voted," or "real," or "thrico assured. " Then the same adjectives would precede the equivalent noun Servant, and would form, also, the same convenient cppogiature to a Friend. He would cay, too (which he might have proclaimed as a new duet), that he was 11 humble and hearty," or "humble and ready," and " real and ready," and "humble and obliged," and " humble and faithful," and " entire and true ;" and the English language being clearly too cabin'd and confin'd for his ardent utterances, he had recourse to French and Spanish and Italian, and also, at a push to Latin and Greek. He did not rely, either (ac surely he might have done), on the unsupported strength of euperb Finis. There wa«s a particularly startling way in which his letters began. " Hail ! Halt of my Soul !" ha exclaimed once to a gentleman, whom he afterwards called, in some sudden verbal poverty. "My dear Dick." And "noble Tom !" was another way he had of fixing the enatic mind; and "precious Tom !" and, concisely, " Robin," and "Sir Edward," and' "Nephew," "Co?en," "Captain," "Brother," "Master Hall." Then he would be grand again, and say, "Mv (rood Lord and Brother ; " and "My Worthy Estfcmed Nephew;" and " Excellent Lady ; " and, to Jonson, sturdily and coinpreheneively, "Father Ben.'' — tl (Tentleman's Magazine"