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Queering the Language of the Heart:

Romantic Letters, Genre Instruction, and
Rhetorical Practice
Pamela VanHaitsma

Department of English , University of Pittsburgh , Pittsburgh , PA ,

USA
Published online: 11 Feb 2014.

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To cite this article: Pamela VanHaitsma (2014) Queering the Language of the Heart: Romantic
Letters, Genre Instruction, and Rhetorical Practice, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 44:1, 6-24, DOI:
10.1080/02773945.2013.861009
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Rhetoric Society Quarterly

Vol. 44, No. 1, pp. 624

Queering the Language of the Heart:

Romantic Letters, Genre Instruction,
and Rhetorical Practice
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Pamela VanHaitsma

While romantic letters are usually understood as unstudied and natural expressions of heartfelt
love, I argue they are learned through genre instruction and crafted through rhetorical practice. In
the nineteenth-century United States, manuals taught generic conventions for epistolary address,
pacing of exchange, and rhetorical purpose, embedding within this instruction a heteronormative
conception of romantic relations. Yet these same conventions were susceptible to queer adaptation,
particularly in the epistolary practices of writers composing same-sex relations. Addie Brown and
Rebecca Primus were African American women who learned but reinvented the conventions by
negotiating category-crossing forms of address, timing exchange with urgency rather than restraint,
and repurposing the romantic letter to erotic and even political ends. Analyzing Brown and
Primuss letters alongside manuals thus underscores the dynamic ways both instruction and
practice shape romantic letters and life.

Had letters been known at the beginning of the world, epistolary writing would
have been as old as love and friendship; for, as soon as they began to flourish,
the verbal messenger was dropped, the language of the heart was committed to
characters that faithfully preserved it, secresy [sic] was maintained, and social
intercourse rendered more free and pleasant.
The Fashionable American Letter Writer (1832)
The association of letter writing with intimate secrets and sexuality has
motivated contemporary critics to investigate authentic letter correspondence
for evidence of homoerotic and homosexual relationships.
Patrick Paul Garlinger (2005)

Pamela VanHaitsma is an Andrew Mellon Predoctoral Fellow in the Department of English at the University of
Pittsburgh, 526 Cathedral of Learning, 4200 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA. E-mail: pamvanhaitsma@
yahoo.com
ISSN 0277-3945 (print)/ISSN 1930-322X (online) # 2014 The Rhetoric Society of America
DOI: 10.1080/02773945.2013.861009

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Queering the Language of the Heart

Romantic letters are often understood as unstudied and natural expressions of

heartfelt loveor what the nineteenth-century manual The Fashionable American
Letter Writer calls the language of the heart (iii; Shepard 29, 56). As cultural
critic and historian Patrick Paul Garlinger writes, the letter is approached as
authentic, as evidence of romantic feeling, desire, and even sexual identity
within a given period (ix).1 Perhaps because romantic letters are presumed to
express an unstudied and natural language of the heart,2 historians of rhetorical
education who study letter-writing instruction have yet to explore how this
instruction shapes romantic relations in the nineteenth-century United States.3
To initiate such investigation, this essay challenges the commonplace understanding of the language of the heart, emphasizing instead how romantic letter writing
is learned through genre instruction and crafted through rhetorical practice. How,
I ask, did nineteenth-century manuals such as The Fashionable American Letter
Writer teach genre conventions for writing romantic letters and, by extension,
cultural norms for composing intimate relationships? At the same time, how were
these genre conventions used in practice, particularly by letter writers whose
same-sex relations subverted cultural norms?
To explore both questions about the romantic letter, I consider simultaneously
two sets of archival materials, the first related to genre instruction and the second
rhetorical practice. The first set of materials consists of nineteenth-century letterwriting manuals that taught the romantic subgenre. These manuals continued a

1
It is easy to call to mind the most flagrant instances: someone locates letters that prove a person was
gay, or in a same-sex romantic friendship, or in a romantic friendship that was not sexual. As rhetorical
scholars Dana Cloud and Charles Morris show, for example, controversies over how Eleanor Roosevelt
and Abraham Lincoln are publicly remembered turn in part on alterative interpretations of their letters.
Indeed, historians rely fundamentally on letters (and diaries) as evidence of past relationships, especially
to study those relations excluded from more public records.
2
Dominant conceptions of Western rhetorical education have also limited scholarly attention to instruction in the romantic subgenre. The long-held, predominant conception of rhetorical education is that it
shapes citizen subjects through preparation for civic engagement, for active participation in the public
discourse of political life (Atwill; Denman; Glenn; Hauser; Poulakis and Depew; Walzer). Within histories
of rhetorical education focused on the nineteenth-century United States, civic engagement persists as the
framing term for investigations otherwise wide-ranging in their commitments to different sites of instruction
and groups of students, as well as their characterizations of teaching and learning over the course of the
century (Bacon and McClish; Connors; Enoch; Gold; Halloran; Kates; Logan). Yet the flourishing manual
culture that taught romantic letter writing complicates the continued coupling of rhetorical education and
civic education. In my larger project, I thus propose a reconception of rhetorical education as in service of
not only civic but also romantic engagement.
3
Although letter-writing instruction has been widely studied, instruction in the romantic subgenre has
not received deep and sustained attention (Bannet; Donawerth; Gage; Johnson; Mahoney; Schultz; Spring;
Trasciatti). Also without emphasis on romantic letters, letter-writing instruction makes appearances
throughout histories of rhetoric and writing instruction (see, for instance, Berlin 38; Brereton 438; Carr,
Carr, and Schultz 1819; Connors 3234; Enoch 101; Gold 68, 9192, 139; Kates 45; Kitzhaber 207208;
Logan 103). Eve Bannet, Mary Anne Trasciatti, and Susan Miller do briefly consider nineteenth-century
manual instruction in romantic letter writing (198; 8588), and learning through the practice of romantic
letter writing (201206).

VanHaitsma

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rich tradition from Ciceros definition of the letter, to the medieval ars dictaminis
and especially eighteenth-century English manuals (Bannet; Murphy; Poster), and
were popular in the nineteenth-century United States, reaching audiences with
limited access to formal training in rhetoric (Donawerth; Johnson; Trasciatti).
Based on my study of over forty nineteenth-century manuals in the University
of Pittsburghs Nietz Collection,4 I argue these texts shaped intimate life by not
only teaching genre conventions for the romantic letter but also embedding within
that instruction a heteronormative conception of romantic relations. This argument is informed by rhetorical genre theory, which conceives of generic purpose
as conventionalized and social (Carolyn Miller 162) rather than private or
idiosyncratic (158), such that genre instruction teaches not just a pattern of
forms or even a method of achieving our own ends, but more importantly, what
ends we may have (165); it teaches not just forms, but forms of life, ways of
being (Bazerman 19). In teaching ways of being, genre instruction in the romantic letter was heteronormative insofar as it systematically normalized opposite-sex
relationsand, just as importantly, particular versions of them (Berlant and
Warner; Morris). Organizing my analysis in light of three genre conventions, I
consider how instruction in conventions for epistolary address taught normatively
gendered romantic relations; how instruction in conventions for the pacing
of exchange taught normative restraint; and how instruction in conventions for
rhetorical purpose taught a normative marriage telos. This analysis of nineteenthcentury instruction in romantic letters shows that, far from being unstudied
expressions of feeling and desire, they were learned through popular genre instruction and its shaping of normative romantic life.
But even when genre instruction is normative, genres themselves are flexible
subject to challenge by learners (Bakhtin 80; Devitt 579580) and, in this case,
to disruption through queer rhetorical practices. While manual pedagogy was
primarily heteronormative, I identify the subtle ways its instruction in genre conventions was susceptible to adaptation. For each of the three generic conventions, I
follow analysis of the predominant instruction with consideration of how it could

The model letters I cite are characteristic of the sample, except where otherwise indicated. Indeed, many
models were compiled and reprinted across manuals, as was common within nineteenth-century textbook
production (Bannet; Carr, Stephen; Nietz). Of the manuals examined, The Fashionable American Letter
Writer was especially popular up to and at midcentury. According to Nan Johnson, it was first published
in 1818 and went through twenty-seven editions into 1860, making it The most successful American
letter-writing manual for over half a century (189, n. 5). Another manual I cite frequently, Chesterfields
Art of Letter Writing Simplified, was modestly successful . . . at midcentury and went through three editions between 1857 and 1860. Jean Ferguson Carr cautions, however, that it is difficult to pinpoint the
popularity of nineteenth-century manuals and textbooks. She explains, The numbers of textbook copies
sold in the nineteenth century is always an elusive bit of knowledge. Scholars propose a figure, based on
extrapolations from known editions and school populations, publishers blurbs, or early bibliographic
records (228, n. 48). Yet as Carr demonstrates through examples of specific books, the sales figures proposed based on such extrapolation vary widely, as do claims about popularity.

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Queering the Language of the Heart

be adapted by learners, as well as how specific letter writers did queer these
conventions through rhetorical practice.5 Here I focus on romantic letters between
Addie Brown and Rebecca Primus, African American women who wrestled with the
widely taught conventions of the romantic letter genre in order to subvert norms
and compose a cross-class, same-sex romantic relationship at midcentury. While
Brown and Primus likely met in Hartford, Connecticut, they corresponded when
separated geographically by workBrown as a domestic, Primus a teacher to former slaves. Letters from Brown are housed at the Connecticut Historical Society,
and Primuss participation in the exchange may be gleaned through Browns letters,
as well as Primuss letters to family and notations on envelopes from Brown.6
Brown and Primuss correspondence demonstrate they were familiar with the heteronormative genre conventions articulated in manuals, but these women adapted
the conventions through queer practices: by negotiating forms of address that
crossed categories of gender and relationship, by timing letters with urgency rather
than the recommended restraint, and by repurposing the romantic letter to erotic
and even political ends. Analysis of Brown and Primuss letters alongside manuals
thus enables a more complex view of how nineteenth-century romantic letters were
shaped through both instruction and practiceof how genre conventions and
cultural norms for intimate life were both instantiated and challenged.
Epistolary Address and the Gendering of Romantic Relations
One genre convention taught by manuals and subverted in practice concerned
epistolary address. As we might expect, the convention for all letters was to begin
with a salutation line addressing the immediate, intended audience, often using
the words Dear and=or My. Yet as Eve Bannet shows, instruction in terms
of address amounted to a lesson in what was culturally approved based on the rank
of writers and readers and the intimacy of their relations (6466). The structure
of nineteenth-century manuals made especially clear the cultural norms for

I use the term queer to refer to practices, rather than identities, meaning that my use is not synonymous
with contemporary categories for sexual identity, which are generally understood to have emerged after the
period under study (Chauncey; Masten; Thomas); instead, it is in reference to rhetorical practices that were
nonnormative within the context of nineteenth-century letter-writing manuals.
6
Primus was born in 1836 to a middle-class family prominent in the African American community of
Hartford, Connecticut (Griffin). Following the Civil War, she went south to Royal Oak, Maryland, where
she worked with the Hartford Freedmens Aid Society to help start and teach in a school for newly freed
slaves. Brown, born in 1841, worked in New York and across Connecticut. Browns letters to Primus begin
in 1859, and cease in 1868 after Brown married. She died shortly after, in 1870. While Primus married at
some point between 1872 and 1874 (White), she saved Browns letters until her own death in 1931. As Karen
Hansen argues, the letters suggest a relationship that was in some ways a typical nineteenth-century romantic
friendship, but in others an explicitly eroticas distinct from romanticfriendship (184). In addition to
Hansen and Farah Griffins significant contributions, additional scholarship on the BrownPrimus correspondence includes primary research by historians Barbara Beeching and David White. Scholars citing
Griffins edited collection include Lillian Faderman, Renee Harrison, and Kathy Peiss, whereas Linda Grasso
has written about Griffins editing of the collection.

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10

VanHaitsma

romantically intimate letters. While manuals usually introduced general principles

for letter writing, they consisted primarily of model letters. These models were
organized into chapters by subgenre, with the most widely taught subgenres being
business, friendship, family, and romantic letters. Chapter divisions thus distinguished between models for how writers were to address readers based on types
of relationship, rendering evident what was distinct about the generic conventions
for address in romantic relations. Simply put, among the thousands of model
letters examined in this study, every model categorized as romantic addressed a
reader gendered feminine if the writer was gendered masculine, and addressed a
reader gendered masculine if the writer was gendered feminine (or is about a
relationship between one person gendered feminine and another gendered
masculine). These writers and readers were gendered through proper names
within salutation lines as well as gendered nouns within titles above model letters,
which also mark class, age, and sometimes race. A model letter From a labouring
man was addressed to his intended wife, for instance (Turner, 1835), and one
From a young Gentleman was to a Lady with whom he is in love (Useful,
1844). Manuals thus represented romantic relations between writers and readers
as defined by gender difference in ways now defined as heterosexual: gender was
marked so as to render opposite-sex relations unremarkable, and opposite-sex
relations were treated as normative, as natural, right, and even inevitable.
Yet, even as manuals taught a heteronormative conception of romantic relations,
they provided resources for composing queerly gender-crossing forms of address.
Certainly models indicated to learners what was considered appropriate, or how
they should address their letters given how they were gendered. But the same models were often available to learners regardless of their gender, presented as resources
for invention through imitation and, in some cases, outright copying. So even a
writer otherwise gendered masculine could cross gender by using a model for
how a lady addresses a gentleman, in order to himself address a gentleman. In this
way, gender-crossing forms of address can detach subjects from gender and sexual
subjectivities that then reattach to queer effect (Thomas 37). Manuals even suggested such detaching and reattaching. Chesterfields Art of Letter Writing Simplified
(1857) provided so-called skeletons of love letters, which included an introductory paragraph and a closing paragraph, and readers were advised to fill up
between the bones to suite themselves (58a). While most of these skeletons were
written from the position of the male lover, presumably because romantic letter
writing came more naturally for women, and they thus needed less instruction,
Chesterfields clarified that some of the above skeletons, or parts of them, could
be adapted by ladies into letters to their lovers, if they were hard up for ideas
(61a). In encouraging learners to adapt models to suite themselves, Chesterfields
prompted the crossing of gendered subject positions for writers and readers. Even
manuals that did not directly encourage this form of gender crossing at least
provided models susceptible to being used as guides by those seeking to compose
same-sex address.

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Queering the Language of the Heart

11

Browns same-sex address to Primus clearly demonstrates knowledge of the

generic convention to begin with a left-aligned salutation, and Primuss notations
on envelopes, of when she receives and responds to Browns letters, affirm that
address with response. More interesting is how, in the absence of generic conventions for how exactly one woman is to address another in a romantic letter, Brown
and Primus compose queerly gender-crossing forms of address just as Chesterfields manual skeletons imply writers might. In their letters, Brown and Primus
negotiate alternative forms of address that cross both the categories of gender
and the categories of relationship emphasized by manuals. For instance, Browns
salutation lines include the following category-crossing terms of address: my
dearly adopted sister, my ever dear friend, my dear & dearest Rebecca, my darling
friend, my loving friend, my beloved Rebecca, my dearest & most affec[tionate]
friend, my only dear & loving friend. These terms of address suggest a same-sex
relation that is familial (these are sisters, even adopted sisters), and that is friendship (these are friends), and that is romantic (these sister-like friends are not only
dear, but also dearest; darling, loved, beloved, affectionate; only, most, and ever).
These terms cross not only the normative gendering of romantic epistolary
address, but also the very categories of relationship that manuals use in separating
chapters on familial and friendship letters from chapters on romantic letters.
Brown and Primus wrestle with generic conventions for address by further
negotiating of these terms within the bodies of their letters. Consider, for instance,
their negotiation of the epistolary address sister. In an 1862 letter, Brown
seemingly responds to Primuss request to be addressed as my sister:
now My Dearest here is nexe question you ask a favor and that is this too call
you my sister and then you ask me if it will be agreeable O My Darling Darling
you know it would it has been my wish for sometime I dare not ask My Dear I
cannot find words to express my feeling toward you is all I can say I will address
you as such. (March 1862)7

Although Brown cannot find words to express [her] feeling toward Primus,
Brown not only finds it agreeable, but also insists it is her own wish that
she address Primus as sister. Later, just before closing the letter, Brown in
turn asks Primus, my Dear will you in your nexe address me by my new title . . .
dont forget. Keeping the agreement, Brown addresses Primus as sisternot
friendin the salutation lines of subsequent letters.

7
This March 1862 letter is from Box I, Folder 23, of the Primus Family Collection, held at the Connecticut
Historical Society. Box I includes Browns letters, and Box II includes Primuss letters. Within each box,
folders are organized by date. Additional letters quoted throughout will be cited according to their date.
Where handwriting in the original letters is unclear, I have bracketed my best estimations; where words
are emphasized through underlining, I have used italics. But I have maintained spelling, punctuation,
and capitalization as they appear in the original letters. Readers who prefer edited letters can find them
in Griffins collection.

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12

VanHaitsma

Still, conversation continues as Brown and Primus struggle with the terms of
address for their relationship and what those terms mean. Even in the 1862 letter,
Brown states that she cannot find words to express her feelings, suggesting the
term sister does not quite do it. Then, four years later, Brown assures Primus,
you have been to me more then any living soul has been or ever will be you have
been more to me then a friend or Sister (10 April 1866). Brown begins the next line
with the address My Idol Sister, a variation of which she uses in another letter,
but never in a salutation line (25 June 1861). Yet in closing the letter, Brown
laments, I wish that I could express my feelings to you, and signs the letter, Sister
Addie (10 April 1866). Again, Brown agrees to use the address sister within the
salutation line, and sometimes even the signature line, but within the body of her
letters, she negotiates with Primus over the meaning of that address. Within these
negotiations, Brown makes romantically grand claims about Primus being more
then any living soul has been or ever will be, insisting that Primus is more than
a sister, more than a friend. At the same time, Brown asserts that the terms of
address available within their negotiations do not express her feelings.
Brown fantasizes about another term of address that might better express her
feelings: husband. In a letter with the salutation My Truest & Only Dear Sister,
Brown begins the body of her letter with this line: What a pleasure it would be to
me to address you My Husband (16 November 1865). Husband is certainly an
address that defies genre conventions for letters between women. It flouts heteronormative genre conventions by crossing categories of both relationship and gender: a woman writer addresses a woman reader not only romantically, but with the
term husbandand, at the same time, with the term sister. Yet Brown does
not entirely defy genre conventions. In fact, she seems hyperaware that the address
husband, whatever she may write about it within the body of her letter, does not
belong in the salutation line. She does not use the term there and, where she does,
she also uses the conditional tense (What a pleasure it would be). Brown agrees,
not only with the conventions of the genre, but also with Primus, by continuing
with the salutation sister. Yet keeping husband out of the salutation line does
not stop Brown from fantasizing about it and its associated pleasure or from
sharing that fantasy with Primus. This line is more a shared fantasy than a request,
but Brown continues to negotiate the genre conventions for address, the terms
she will use with Primus, and even what those terms mayor would, under
different cultural conditionsmean. While Brown has learned the conventions
for epistolary address, her and Primuss rhetorical practices use and negotiate
terms in ways that cross the categories of gender and relationship taught by manuals.
Letter Pacing and the Exercise of Restraint
Along with epistolary address, manuals taught genre conventions for pacing
romantic letter exchanges and, by extension, relationships. Like the conventions
for epistolary address, those for dating letters were taught quite simply through

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Queering the Language of the Heart

13

modeling across the subgenres of the letter: most models included a date in the
upper right corner of the letter. Embedded within the bodies of letters categorized
as romantic, however, were less simple and more interesting lessons about the
relationship between the dating and pacing of letters and the temporality
of romantic relations. In a nineteenth-century version of what Judith Jack
Halberstam terms straight timea temporality for when and how one normatively proceeds from one stage of relationship and life development to the next
(e.g., dating, marriage, childbirth)manuals warned against rushed expressions
of affection and proposals. Manuals taught instead that base passions are kept
in check partly through the exercise of studied restraint with respect to timing.
In The Pocket Letter Writer (1836), for instance, a series of model letters illustrated
ways to curb romantic relations as a virtuous response to, and even a punishment
for, baseness.
The series began with a letter titled From a lady to a gentleman, in answer to
a dishonorable proposal, in which the lady scorn[s] the gentlemans highly
improper letter and its baseness, insisting on her own virtue (9293).
Following The gentlemans apology, the lady replied again, this time willing
to continue relations in the future, but only after a period of time:

If . . . at the expiration of six months, your conduct has been that which I hope
and expect . . . you may then return, and claim both my heart and my hand. But
any efforts on your part to shorten this period will be unavailing, my resolution
being not to see you till the period I now mention, which, permit me to add, is
a very mild punishment when compared with your offence. (9495)

Through this model and its emphasis on timing, The Pocket Letter Writer teaches
a normative temporality for romantic relations in which the slowing of relations is
a virtuous punishment in response to baseness, so that there is time for conduct to
be studied further. This temporality is also predictably gendered and heteronormative: it presumes an opposite-sex relation defined by gender difference, such
that the base letter is from a writer gendered masculine and the virtuous and
punishing response from a writer gendered feminine.
Manual instruction in this normative temporality taught letter writers to use
studied restraint not only as punishment but also as precaution. Like most manuals, Chesterfields was especially cautious about letters and proposals deemed
hasty or precipitate (63). Chesterfields made explicit what The Pocket Letter
Writer implied about the relationship between cautious restraint, timing, and the
study of conduct. In one model, a lady wrote, Let us not . . . be too hasty in
our conclusionslet us not mistake momentary impulse for permanent
impression; let us seek rather to know more of each other, to study each others
tempers, and to establish . . . sincere esteem (64). Such deliberate study was crucial
to crafting letters restrained in both timing and intensity, so as to avoid passionate

14

VanHaitsma

outbreaks. In another model titled To an acquaintance of long standing, the

letter writer preempted concerns about potential haste by explaining,

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From constantly meeting with you, and observing the thousand acts of amiability
and kindness which adorn your daily life, I have gradually associated my hopes of
future happiness with the chance of possessing you as their sharer. Believe me,
dear Miss , this is no outbreak of boyish passion, but the hearty and healthy
result of a long and affectionate study of your disposition. It is love, founded on
esteem. (64)

This writer insisted that he engaged in constant observation, so his expression of

affection was based on careful study and thus well-founded. It was far from an
unrestrained expression, a momentary impulse, or a passionate outbreak. In teaching genre conventions for the pacing of romantic exchange, then, manuals also
taught norms for the exercise of restraint with respect to relationship timing
and intensity.
At the same time, manuals again offered at least some resources for those letter
writers less constrained by convention. Indeed, the restraint exercised in the above
letter is especially evident when compared to another model, of what not to do.
Titled From a young Man, avowing a passion he had entertained for a length of
time, and fearful of disclosing it, this model lacked restraint in its intensity of
expression. Although the writer has entertained his passion for a length of time,
he described the process as one not of constant dispassionate study, but of constant
obsession. He noted that he has so long struggled with [his] feelings, is continually agitated, has been oppressed with a passion that has entirely superseded every
other feeling of [his] heart, and was unable to entertain but one idea, one
thought, one feeling (61). He obviously composed precisely the outbreak of
boyish passion that the other letter avoided (64). As though realizing the extent
to which he was not exercising restraint, he confessed that he was throwing aside
hesitation, was alarmed at [his] own boldness, but would still lay open [his]
whole heart. Of course, Chesterfields cautioned, we should not recommend this
letter for imitation; but people will send such letters (61, emphasis in original). In
spite of such caution, manuals did provide such models. This letter was marked as a
model of what not to do. But, in the hands of at least some writers, it could be used
to imitate precisely what manuals taught to avoid.
Brown and Primuss letters similarly defy genre conventions for pacing and
restraint within romantic relations. Browns letters to Primus, and Primuss to
her family, are dated in keeping with genre conventions. But, paradoxically in
Primuss case, her lack of restraint is evident precisely because she keeps such disciplined track of the timing of her letters. Although Primuss letters to Brown are
unavailable, the saved envelopes from Browns letters include Primuss notations
in which she tracks the dates when she receives and responds to each of her letters.
The backside of a typical envelope, for instance, includes a notation like the
following: Rec Mar 11th=1862=Ans Mar 16th=1862. This careful attention to

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Queering the Language of the Heart

15

timing details is matched by an exercise of discipline with respect to her epistolary

exchange with family. While away from Hartford and teaching in Royal Oak,
Primus maintains a regular practice of writing to them once a week. In the opening
lines to one such letter, she expresses her awareness of conventions for letter pacing
by explaining that she is writing your weeklieI style it The Home Weeklie (27
April 1868). Primus apparently maintains this regular schedule of writing to her
family, and it is cause for explanation when she does not (4 April 1868). In contrast
with these home weeklies to her family, Primus is less disciplined in the timing
of her romantic letters to Brown. Some of Browns letters suggest there was an
expectation for regularly timed letters (16 November 1865), and perhaps even
for one letter per week (19 January 1868). But according to Primuss notations,
she frequently Ans[wers] letters from Brown within one to four days, thus
writing more than just once per week.
Brown exercises even less restraint with respect to timing. In a letter from 1867,
Brown questions Primus about not writing as expected: What shall I attribute to
your silence to? You are not punishing me for not writing last week are you? (14
January 1867). Of course, Browns first question quickly leads to a second, which
indicates that she too does not write when expected. These questions suggest both
an awareness of genre conventions for letter pacing and a practice of pacing letters
somewhat inconsistently, with the timing of their letters, like the terms of their
address, being negotiated through their epistolary exchange. Brown often writes
another letter to Primus even before there has been enough time for Primus to
answer the prior letter, even before the notes on envelopes suggest Primus has
answered. At times Brown writes as much as once a day, or more than once in
the same day. Relatively early in their correspondence, for example, Brown mails
Primus letters dated 25 September, 28 September, 29 September, and 2 October
1861. On 28 September, Brown writes not once but twice, first in the morning
and then again at midnight twelve o clock precisely (28 September 1861). In
the first entry, Brown writes, I think its about time that I heard from you I have
been looking very patincely for a letter and have not received any as yet. By the
second entry, it seems Brown has received a kind and Affec letter, but her early
remarks about time and looking very patincely of course raise questions about
just how patiently she looks for that letter. Brown thus writes with frequency (five
letters in seven days) and urgency (its about time). Although she dates her letters
according to convention, her correspondence with Primus does not conform to the
measured and studied restraint recommended by manuals; instead, it queers norms
for the temporality and intensity of romantic relations.
Rhetorical Purpose and the Marriage Telos
In addition to conventions for epistolary address and the pacing of exchange,
manuals taught the generic rhetorical purpose for romantic letters. The purposes
taught for other subgenres of the letter were varied, but in the case of the romantic

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subgenre, the purpose was quite specific. Manuals did not teach that writers
compose romantic letters simply to develop romantic relationships, or to develop
conversations within romantic relationships about a range of topics, such as
politics. Instead, manuals taught that the purpose of romantic letters was to court
or be courted in pursuit of marriage between a man and a woman. Chapter titles,
which almost always include the phrasing Love, Courtship, and Marriage,
revealed the genres normative telos. While some repetition of chapter titles was
probably a function of nineteenth-century textbook production practices (Bannet;
Carr, Carr, and Schultz; Nietz), the consistent ordering of the words figured
romantic love as teleological, with marriage as the ultimate purpose and courtship
letters as a genre for reaching that end. In keeping with chapter titles, most model
romantic letters were concerned with marriage proposals and responses to them. As
Chesterfields claimed, Affairs of the heartthe delicate and interesting preliminaries of marriage, are oftener settled by the pen than in any other manner (54).
A manual from later in the century more bluntly stated, The love letter is the
prelude to marriage (Hills 112). Manuals thus taught that romantic letters were
not for the sake of themselves, or even for the sake of romantic love. Instead, they
were taught as a generic means of accomplishing the culturally sanctioned ends
[one] may have for romantic relations: a marriage between a woman and a man
(Carolyn Miller 165).
While this generic end was represented quite predictably in model romantic letters, at least some guides included exceptional letters not categorized as romantic
yet hinting at the potential for less normative purposes. Most exceptional was
a model cryptogram included in at least one edition of The Fashionable American
Letter Writer (1832) and later reprinted in The Art of Correspondence (Locke,
1884). Titled Female Ingenuity, the model was preceded by an explanation that,
A young lady, newly married, being obliged to show to her husband all the letters
she wrote, sent the following to an intimate friend (Fashionable 178; see figure 1).
Importantly, this was a letter about romantic relations, rather than one written
within a romantic relation. It was also a letter written by an already married
person, rather than for the purposes of pursuing marriage. The models title
and preceding explanation acknowledged explicitly the gendered power dynamics
at work within nineteenth-century marriage and, more implicitly, how such
dynamics constituted a rhetorical situation in which women may desire ingenious
ways of subverting norms.
Directions for reading cryptogram letters followed the model: The key to the
above letter is to read the first and then every alternate line only (179; see
figure 2). Not decoded, the letter first read as praise for the writers husband
and her life with him. Yet in following the cryptograms instructions, readers
discovered that the letter, if literally read between the lines, complained about
the marriage and expressed desire for a former lover. For instance, the letter first
seemed to say the writer was blest . . . in the matrimonial state, as her husband
is the most amiable of men, and she had never found the least reason to=repent

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Queering the Language of the Heart

17

Figure 1 Opening to model cryptogram from The Fashionable American Letter Writer (1832). Courtesy of
University of Pittsburgh, Digital Research Library, http://digital.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/t/text/text-idx?idno=
00z480908m;view=toc;c=nietz.

the day that joined them. But, once decoded, the letter indicated the writer did
repent her marriage. By the first account, her former gallant lover=is now [her]
indulgent husband, whereas in the second decoded account, the former lover is

Figure 2 Closing to model cryptogram from The Fashionable American Letter Writer (1832). Also courtesy
of University of Pittsburgh, Digital Research Library, http://digital.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/t/text/text-idx?
idno=00z480908m;view=toc;c=nietz.

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VanHaitsma

returned, and she grieved that she might have had= . . . = him rather than her
husband. In the first, the writer was un-=able to wish that [she] could be more=
happy. In the second, she was un-= . . . = happy. While this woman wrote
about and participated in marriage, her letter suggested purposes that surpass
the normative marriage telos. Instead of using the letter to pursue the ends of
marriage, she more mischievously navigated genre conventions and cultural
norms. Yet this model cryptogram would have been instructive not only for
married women, but for any letter writers with purposes not entirely consistent
with the conventional genre of the romantic letter.
Like those of the cryptogram writer, Brown and Primuss relations and desires
exceed cultural norms. In at least three ways, they too navigate their rhetorical
situation by writing for purposes inconsistent with the generically conventional
marriage telos. First, in spite of how they otherwise adapt conventions, cultural constraints were such that they simply could not marry each other. Brown frequently
notes that marriage is not an option with Primus because of course neither of them
is gendered as a man. I have already quoted the letter in which Brown fantasizes
about What a pleasure it would be to me to address you My Husband, but realizes
her would-be address could not be (16 November 1865). In another letter, Brown
proclaims romantic love for Primus, but pauses over the question of what her
claims may actually come to given that Primus is a Girl and not a man:
no kisses is like yours. . . . You are the first Girl that I ever love . . . you are the last
one . . . I mean just what I say . . . if you was a man what would things come to (30
August 1859). Elsewhere, Brown relays that Primuss mother said I thought as
much of you if you was a gentleman she also said if either one of us was a gent
we would marry (21 January 1866). Across their correspondence, Brown recognizes and articulates that their letters cannot pursue heteronormative marriage.
Not surprisingly, she writes with ambivalence about her coming marriage to
a suitor, Joseph Tines (25 October 1866; 19 January 1868). She frames her decision
to marry him as an economic choice and even necessity (24 May 1861), pleading
with Primus to understand: My loved one . . . will you not look at my marrying
in a different light then you do . . . perhaps see you three time in a year . . . I will
get my money regular for two or three week and then irregular . . . Rebecca if I could
live with you or even be with you parts of the day I would never marry (23
February 1862). One of Brown and Primuss purposes for composing romantic
letters, then, is to acknowledge and find ways of coping with the constraints that
prevented them from pursuing the generic ends of marriage with each other.
A second way Brown and Primus defy the conventional purpose for romantic
letters is by writing about nonnormative erotic relations with others. They discuss
not only relations with the men who later become their husbands, but also relations
with other women that are not teleologically oriented toward marriage. In one such
exchange, while Brown was working at a private boarding school, she frequently
mentions her flirtatious interactions with other workers, at times writing in
response to Primuss inquiries. Brown informs Primus that the workers visit each

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Queering the Language of the Heart

19

othertwo of them Englishone of them I call her my female lover (20 October
1867)and, a week later, that, the girls are very friendly towards me . . . sometime
just one of them wants to sleep with me perhaps I will give my consent some of
these nights I am not very fond of White I can assure you (27 October 1867).
In Browns next reference to those nights, she responds to Primuss concern, that
is my bosom that captivated the girl that made her want to sleep with me, with the
assurance that Brown had my back towards her all night and my night dress was
button up so she could not get to my bosom (17 November 1867). Brown further
assures, I shall try to keep you favorite one always for you, but then provokes
with, should in my excitement forget you will pardon me I know. In a later letter,
she insists, I thought I told you about the girl sleeping with me, evading the question of whether I enjoyed it or not, and even back peddling with, I dont know
what kind of an excitement I refer to but I presume I know at the time (8 December 1867). Certainly Browns purposes include flirtatiously provoking jealousy.
What I mean to emphasize, though, is how she and Primus discuss yet another nonnormative relation, a cross-race erotic interaction between two working-class
women, an interaction certainly not teleologically oriented to marriage. This discussion simultaneously composes Brown and Primuss own nonnormative relation:
it perhaps fuels their ongoing exchange; it definitely is part of what they write about,
and so what constitutes their relationship through letters. In writing about nonnormative relations with others, theylike the cryptogram writerrepurpose the letter genre.
Third, Brown and Primus defy conventions for rhetorical purpose by using their
romantic letters to comment on political life. Not surprisingly, given gendered
norms for interactions between women and men, manuals do not model conventions for incorporating political discussion within romantic letters. Such discussion is simply absent from models, which represent the romantic subgenre as
distinct from other letters, as if the rhetorical situations of romantic and political
life are distinct. In contrast, over the course of her romantic correspondence with
Primus, Brown develops an increasing interest in politics, especially after the Civil
War concluded. Browns interest in politics extends to figures elected to public
officeeven though African Americans were denied the right to vote in Hartford
until 1876 (Griffin 90). Depending on the figure in question, Brown expresses both
glee and disdain. Upon learning that in Boston the Republican have nominated
a colored man for the legislature no one but Mr. Charles B. Mitchell, Brown
writes that she is delighted our color will be a people get a few more states like
Mass. (4 November 1866); upon hearing that the President Johnson expect to be
in Hartford the 26th, she writes that she wish some of them [his friends] present
him with a ball through his head (23 June 1867). Browns commentary on
political figures is not separate, however, from her romantic purposes. In the same
letter, and even in the lines directly following her wish for Johnson, she expresses
a more conventional romantic longing, wishing for Primus to return from Royal
Oak to Hartford so they may see each other: how long will it be before I can have

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the pleasure of seeing you . . . do not Rebecca consent to teach another month O
do come home wont you (23 June 1867).
Browns letters also serve purposes simultaneously romantic and political as she
writes to Primus about participation in public debates, lectures, and publications
explicitly about racial politics. In an 1867 letter, Brown reports, Colonel Trimble
of Tennessee is going to lecture at Talcott street Church on Wednesday evening
the subject is the capacity of colored men. She anticipates, I think I shall go
for I would like to hear him (24 February 1867). In the next letter, Brown offers
her most lengthy account of a lecture. In part, she writes,
Col Trimble his subject was, Colored Mans Capacity, he spoke very well . . . he
also spoke of [Reverend Henry Highland] Garnett, [Frederick] Douglass and
other distinguish men the day would come when states would allow every
man vote he also said that he was going back to Tennessee and take two blackest
men one on each arm and go up to the ballot box. (3 March 1867)

Browns account of Trimbles lecture about racial politics and the vote coexists with
her more romantic sentiments. In the same letter, for example, Brown notes how she
would like to send her very nice breakfast to Primus, promising that when they are
together next, I shall make some . . . for you and only you. Brown also writes that
Primuss letters always affords me much pleasure . . . and I sometime feels that you
are near, and mentions, I had a singular dream about you. Through letters like
this one, Brown continues her romantic epistolary exchange with Primus while also
exchanging information and commentary about racial politics. Although legally
barred from political participation in the form of voting, and although instruction
in the genre conventions for romantic letters seem to bar all political discussion,
Brown repurposes the romantic letter genre in order to share with Primus her sentiments about not only their romantic relation, but also electoral and racial politics.
Brown thus challenges manuals separation of romantic purposes from political life.
Conclusion
Nineteenth-century romantic letters were shaped by genre instruction and rhetorical practice. In teaching genre conventions for epistolary address, pacing of
exchange, and the rhetorical purpose of romantic letters, manuals also taught heteronormatively gendered writer and reader relations characterized by the exercise
of restraint and directed toward a marriage telos. Yet even as manual instruction
was mainly heteronormative, it taught the romantic letter genre as open to nonnormative adaptation through gender-crossing address, unrestrained outbreaks,
and queer repurposing. In other words, however normative genres and genre
instruction may be, they are not entirely settled; they are flexible and susceptible to
queer challenge and repurposing. Brown and Primuss rhetorical practices exemplify
how at least some rhetors creatively reinvent genre conventions in defiance of cultural
norms. Their letters demonstrate a familiarity with genre conventions, which they

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Queering the Language of the Heart

21

certainly use. But they repurpose the romantic letter genre to compose their
same-sex relationship, to write about erotic relations with others, and to comment
on racial politicsnone of which were modeled by manuals. In addition, the pace
of their letters is more urgent than advised, and they negotiate forms of epistolary
address that cross the categories of gender and relationship taught by manuals.
Taken together, manuals and the BrownPrimus correspondence suggest that genre
instruction and rhetorical practice play a dynamic and complex, rather than
entirely predictable, role in shaping romantic letters and life.
Given this dynamism and complexity, scholars should explore further the onceFashionable instruction in the language of the heart and those rhetorical practices
that faithfully preserved it (iii). Through such exploration, historians of genre
instruction and rhetorical education have an opportunity to contribute to interdisciplinary histories of sexuality and nineteenth-century romantic life. While the
language of the heart seems to be an unstudied and natural expression of heartfelt
love, language for composing nineteenth-century romantic letters and relations was
taught and learned as well as crafted. Cultural critics and historians who continue
to investigate authentic letter correspondence for evidence of homoerotic and
homosexual relationships (Garlinger ix) would be well served, then, by taking
a nuanced approach that examines romantic letters in relation to genre instruction
and reads them as rhetorically crafted practices.

Acknowledgments
For their feedback on prior drafts of this essay, I would like to thank Jess Enoch,
Don Bialostosky, and the anonymous RSQ reviewers. I am also grateful for the
assistance of archival staff at the Connecticut Historical Society and William
Daw at the University of Pittsburgh.

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