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first love-letter—it is an epoch in our life—a task equally delightful and difficult. No lover ever yet addressed his mistress, and no mistress ever yet addressed her lover, without beginning the gentle epistle some dozen times at least. There is so much to be said, and which no words seem exactly to say—the dread of saying too much is so nicely balanced by the fear of saying too little. Hope borders on presumption, and fear on reproach. One epithet is too cold—another we are scarcely entitled to use. Timidity and tender ness get in each other's way. The letter is sent, and immediately a thousand things are recollected—those, too, we were most anxious to write—and every sentence that occurs is precisely the one we wish we had omitted. The epistle is opened