From the Shelves of the Paco Library

In this age of instant communication, and the coeval evolution of various forms of pidgin English, of which text messaging is perhaps the most prominent example, the epistolary art form, sadly, seems to be dying out. Fortunately, historical examples are abundant, and the Oxford University Press offers an excellent sampler in The Oxford Book of Letters, edited by Frank and Anita Kermode.

The wonderful thing about letter writing is that it imposes little in the way of thematic constraints: the same letter may combine discussions of great matters of state with a complaint about the weather, or mix lofty philosophy with dirty jokes. Instructive, gossipy, humorous, despairing, giddy – what we write to friends, family, or the editorial page of the local newspaper provides us with an opportunity to assert our personality in ways that are often forbidden us in face-to-face or telephone conversations because of shyness or propriety or simply the ping-pong pattern of conversational give-and-take, or which are simply not suited to the protocols of the increasingly omnipresent BlackBerry. I hope the excerpts below will give you a taste of what I mean.

Sydney Smith, an English clergyman whose life straddled the turn of the 19th century, was far better known for his wit than for his theological opinions. Here he discusses an exercise in matchmaking undertaken by him and his wife (to John Allen, November of 1826):

“You will be amused with John Murray’s marriage. It was concocted at Mr. Philips under the auspices of Mrs. Sydney and myself. The lady has £60,000, is a considerable Greek Scholar, a Senior Wrangler in Mathematics and the most perfect Instrumental Musician I ever heard. Ten days finished the matter; indeed she has no time to lose since she is 39. I never saw two longer fatter Lovers, for she is as big as Murray. They looked enormous as they were making love in the plantations. She is so fond of Murray that she pretends to love porridge, cold weather and metaphysics. Seriously speaking it is a very good marriage, and acting under the direction of medical men, with perseverance and the use of stimulating diet there may be an heir to the house of Henderland.”

Mark Twain, writing to W.D. Howells in July of 1885, describes some of the feelings I have experienced myself in occasionally diving into a disappointing book:

“You are really my only author; I am restricted to you; I wouldn’t give a damn for the rest. I bored through Middlemarch during the past week, with its labored & tedious analyses of feelings and motives, its paltry & tiresome people, its unexciting & uninteresting story, & its frequent blinding flashes of single-sentence poetry, philosophy, wit, & what-not, & nearly died from over-work. I wouldn’t read another of those books for a farm. I did try to read one other – Daniel Deronda. I dragged through three chapters, losing flesh all the time, & then was honest enough to quit, & confess to myself that I haven’t any romance-literature appetite, as far as I can see, except for your books.”

The novelist, Evelyn Waugh, was a prolific letter writer (there are at least three books out that consist of nothing but his letters and those of various correspondents). The following is from a letter he wrote to his wife Laura in February of 1940, during his stint in the Royal Marines:

“Yesterday was an alarming day. The Brigadier suddenly accosted Messer-Bennetts & me & said, ‘I hear you are staying in camp for the week-end. You will spend the day with me.’ So at 12.30 he picked us up in his motorcar and drove all over the road to his house which was the lowest type of stockbroker’s Tudor and I said in a jaggering way ‘Did you build this house, sir?’ and he said ‘Build it! It’s 400 years old!’ The Brigadier’s madam is kept very much in her place and ordered about with great shouts ‘Woman, go up to my cabin and get my boots’. More peculiar, she is subject to booby-traps. He told us with great relish how the night before she had had to get up several times in the night to look after a daughter who was ill and how, each time she returned, he had fixed up some new horror to injure her – a string across the door, a jug of water on top of it etc. However she seemed to thrive on this treatment & was very healthy & bright with countless children.”

The book includes well over 300 letters, and runs the gamut from the sublime (Sir Thomas More) to the ridiculous (Groucho Marx, whose hilarious letter to Warner Brothers involving a dispute over the use of the word “Casablanca” in a film title is, alone, worth the price of the book). Whether or not you’re a letter writer, there’s something here to please almost any reader.