The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-04-16
LETTER WRITING.
From the N. Y. World.

From the NJ Y. World. Ga
When Clio sits down at her desk, in the
midst of tinted stationery and ivory-handled
pens and alluring ink-jaxs, and begins epis-
tolary communion with remote Polyhymnia,
she naturally does not forebode that her un-
reserved communings shall become the sport
of chance, and be published abroad for the
perusal of mankind. She is, therefore, less
reserved and reticent than she would be if
she knew that the universe was to be the
recipient of her epistle. Out of the full
ness of her heart she writes, and she pro-
badly says good many things which, ap-
propriate enough for the eye of friendship,
are apt to embarrass both writer and reci-
pient when they glare upon them from the
broad daylight of the printed page. 1t is
not that the sentiments of Clio are in any
way Objectionable, or that she let's out any
dangerous or compromising secrets, but that
the private comlnunings of friend with friend,
like the household converse of husband with
wife or the secret and moonlit colloquy of
lover and mistress, are not intended as public
outgivings, and they lose their grace and
appropriateness when they lose their privacy,
rs the violet loses its sheen and lustre when
it is drawn from the shade in which it blooms
to the full blaze of the sunshine. Who
would like to see his love-letters printed,
and the phrases of endearment with which
he wooed the lady of his love made the sport
of ribald youth and unromantic middle
age; the jibe of hardened bachelors and
the derision of elderly maids who had
long outlived the peril of such amatory solici-
tations? To lover of becoming sensibility
such calamity would bring grief beyond the
assuagement of speech or tears. Nothing
would be left him except to put dust upon
his head and lock up his writing-desk for
ever. And yet the love-letters might be good
ones They might be brimful of fantastic
superlatives and odorous of callow alteration.
But the world coarsely translates the impetu-
GUS gushings of individual emotion, and it
would be likely to laugh at the lovers rhapso-
dies, and think his illusions to the moon and
other heavenly bodies absurd. No one who
writes love or other letters can be entirely
sure that they may not some time be brought
forth and read by rude attorneys in open
court, or printed by merciless editors and
commented on by unsympathizing readers
far and wide. Nobody is exempt
from the danger of lawsuit, and
nobody's letter is free from the
This being the case, it behooves correspon,
dents, even in their most intimate moods, to
bear in mind the possibility that they may be
addressing the human race instead of an in
diyidual, and fashion their letters according
ly. When the document is finished, if they
are in any doubt as to how it would look il
print, they might experimentally send it TO
newspaper, and, if it stood the test of pub
licity to their satisfaction, forward it to it
destination; if not, suppress it. This pre-
caution would render correspondent t0le
rably ssfe, but except to refrain wholly from
writing there would seem to be no other.
The letters thus far made public in tn
Mcfarland trial deserve to rank as epistolar
curiosities; but, except as exhibiting a littl