It is that somehow the act of writing paralyses them.
They cannot condense the atmosphere in which they live to the concrete
word. You have to draw them out. They need a friendly lead. When they have
got that they can talk well enough, but without it they are dumb.
In the great sense letter-writing is no doubt a lost art. It was killed by
the penny post and modern hurry. When Madame de Sevigny, Cowper, Horace
Walpole, Byron, Lamb, and the Carlyles wrote their immortal letters the
world was a leisurely place where there was time to indulge in the luxury
of writing to your friends. And the cost of franking a letter made that
letter a serious affair. If you could only send a letter once in a month or
six months, and then at heavy expense, it became a matter of first-rate
consequence. The poor, of course, couldn't enjoy the luxury of
letter-writing at all. De Quincey tells us how the dalesmen of Lakeland a
century ago used to dodge the postal charges. The letter that came by stage
coach was received at the door by the poor mother, who glanced at the
superscription, saw from a certain agreed sign on it that Tom or Jim was
well, and handed it back to the carrier unopened.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25