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This story of a first meeting between two pen pals was widely circulated on the Internet as a true story (typically entitled The Rose) beginning in 1996. Example: It is, however, a work of fiction which was penned by S.I. Kishor, originally published in a 1943 issue of Collier's magazine under the title Appointment with Love. (The same story also appeared without attribution and with the characters' names slightly altered in the 1992 Max Lucado book And the Angels Were Silent, and with appropriate credit in the 1996 collections A 3rd Serving of Chicken Soup for the Soul and Stories for the Heart.) The tale's huge cyberspatial appeal wasn't difficult to comprehend: online friendships are formed sight unseen, and this process gives rise to quite understandable anxieties about the other person. Questions of physical appeal aside, we're left wondering whether the people we're corresponding with are every bit as wonderful in real life, or whether they're putting on a clever act and taking us in. This uncertainty leaves us with the uneasy feeling that although we think we know the other person, we're never sure. A legend about this anxiety's being faced and the situation's working out in fairy tale fashion therefore falls upon many very receptive ears. This is a touching tale, one that tries to convey an admirable moral about personality and character outshining physical beauty, but many readers find it a bitterly ironic piece that actually delivers the opposite message. Note the man's reaction upon his deciding to approach the woman he presumed to be Hollis: This would not be love, but it would be something precious, something perhaps even better than love, a friendship for which he had been and must ever be grateful. On the strength of their correspondence, this man had fantasized a budding romance; upon catching sight of his pen pal, he promptly discarded any such notion. His decision was made purely on the basis of the woman's physical appearance: he wrote her off as a romantic partner without so much as first speaking to her. Society places a premium on attractiveness, and as much as we decry the unfairness of this valuation, we often (unwittingly or otherwise) reinforce it. Many readers take in this story as a touching romantic tale, one whose denoument feels right in that the soldier who greeted the older woman instead of running away was rewarded with the pretty girl he'd ached for. But if we truly believed the love of a good woman was its own best reward and that looks didn't matter, we should be rooting for the hero to walk past the comely blonde almost without seeing her in his haste to reach the woman he'd lost his heart to. Were love the important thing, we'd have been quite happy to have the 40-ish, frumpy woman turn out to be the real Hollis and for the story to end with the two lovers walking away arm in arm. Instead, the soldier has to fight a moral battle within himself, and readers are touched by his ending up with not just love but beauty, too. What's wrong with the unintended message of this short story is perhaps best expressed through a rewrite of it penned by James A. Whitney. In that version, we see into the heart of the woman who waits. (If you thought the original was touching, you'll find tears in your eyes by the time you finish this one.) In the autumn of 1998, an updated version of this tale appeared in the little-known true life stories magazine For Me. In that modern retelling, Gwen and Brian meet in an Internet chat room for writers, and the denouement takes place at the airport in Sydney, Australia. Thought the story has been moved forward fifty years, there's the same refusal to swap photos, same yellow rose, same old lady to direct the hero to where his beautiful lady love awaits him. The fable of a young man who is paired by circumstance with an unattractive woman, who shows her kindness nonetheless, and who is rewarded for his gallantry by ending up with a beautiful young woman is far from a new one. One of the Arthurian legends (mid-15th century) has King Arthur tricked by an evil knight into having to solve an impossible riddle: what do women most want? An old hag finally offers the one true answer (what she wants is her own way), but her price is one of Arthur's knights as a husband. Sir Gawain and the hag are duly churched, and this flower of knighthood treats the old woman well despite her huge floppy ears, wrinkled skin, and bleary eyes. On their wedding night the crone transforms into a beautiful maiden only to pose this question: would Sir Gawain prefer she be beautiful by day or by night? Unwilling to dictate the fate of another, he tells her such an important decision has to be her choice, thereby demonstrating that he has learned the value of treating women as people, not property. The lovely maiden announces that this was the last test and that he'd passed. Now, she would be beautiful all the time, forever and ever. Gawain's gallantry and understanding are rewarded in classic fashion. Early expressions of the loathly hag theme (as this motif is known) are found in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (in the Wife of Bath's Tale) and John Gower's 1386 Tale of Florent.
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