Oh, the cynics aren't feeling threatened. I mean, would
you feel threatened if the opposing lawyer provided you with fresh information with which you could win your case?
And I do feel that these fresh effusions of Victorian repressed and anal-retentive expression do tend to prove the cynics' point. Can you imagine the mismatches which must have occurred because of the remote and flowery outpourings of courtly love they encapsulated?
For example,
Sometimes, when I think of your artless winning ways, my heart fills with hope; sometimes, fear lays her cold hand upon me, when I think how small are my claims to so superior a being as you! For pity's sake? How many inexperienced and often ill-educated girls, when faced with evidence of the fact that their putative lover could actually read and write like this, fell head over heels for the words rather than the man behind them?
It makes me wonder whether, if divorce had been as freely available and mostly free of social stigma as it is today, most of these marriages wouldn't have just floated like a lead balloon ...
Ah, but it's all jolly good fun, eh!
