Letters have a powerful effect: they may lead to divorce, or to a duel, or to wars. And you are not done with a letter once you stick a postage stamp on it and drop it into the box, for what you set down in it may prove, even after a long while, a calamity for you. And the greater the standing of the sender, the greater the weight of the letter and of what it contains.

So beware what you write in haste, for you may have to pay its price afterward, and cry out: Would that I had burned that letter!

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Napoleon was a genius in the military field, but he was extremely

careless when it came to expressing his opinions, especially when writing his letters. An example is this letter, which he sent to Marie Louise, his second wife, and which brought him to a fate that all the hosts of Europe together had been powerless to accomplish:

March 23, 1814

My darling:

I have not left my horse these past few days. On the 20th I occupied Arcis on the Aube, where the enemy attacked me at six in the evening. On the same day I defeated him and destroyed 4,000 of his men. I took two cannon from him and he took two from me, so we came out even. On the 21st the enemy drew up as if for battle, to cover the advance of some of his men toward Brienne and Bar on the Aube. I have resolved to make for the Marne and his fortified lines. I shall be at Saint-Dizier this afternoon. Farewell, my darling. A kiss for my son.

Nap.

This letter fell into the hands of the enemy, who thereby obtained all the information he longed to know. That was one of the many causes that led to Napoleon's defeat in the campaign of 1814 and to his exile to Elba.

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The famous English writer Jonathan Swift, author

of "Gulliver's Travels," was caught in the love of two beautiful women, and unable to prefer one over the other. For many long years he courted the affection of one of them, Stella, while at the same time corresponding with his other lovely sweetheart, Esther, whom he called Vanessa.

Things went smoothly for this double lover! Each of the two sweethearts remained wholly ignorant of her rival's existence—until disaster struck, on account of a letter! For chance willed that Vanessa should learn of Stella's existence, and she penned her a letter asking her to explain the extent of her connection with Jonathan. Stella was thunderstruck when she read the contents of the letter. She carried it with a broken heart to Swift, and shed abundant tears as she told him of her pain that he was attached to another. Swift took the letter from her, went to Vanessa, flung it into her lap, and turned back the way he had come.

Only a few weeks passed before Vanessa died.

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It once happened that a letter was the cause of a duke's son being deprived of his title! The father, the Duke of Sussex and son of George III, King of England, made his way to Italy in 1793 on account of ill health. There he fell in love with Lady Augusta Murray, the daughter of a countess. Despite the marriage law of the English court and its strict restrictions, the Duke was able to persuade an English clergyman named Gunn to perform

the marriage ceremony.

A few days before his marriage, the Duke penned this brief letter to