The daily Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1878-1???, 1883-03-29
MODERN LETTER W RlrING,
How Forms Change, but Facts Remain
An AddisOnian Epistle.


Cheap postage and postal cards, the
telegraph and the telephone, are thought
by many despairing people of con-
sentative turn of mind to have put an
end to letter-writing. The students OF
our English literature who delight in
Gray's and Cowper's and Horace Wal
poles letters do not honor Rowland
Hill, and feel grudge against Mr..
Gladstone because he used postal cards.
Who now sits down to an ample sheet
and gossips with the penp In whose
letters of to-day shall the historian
hereafter look for the form and pressure
of this timer Their crisp brevity, their
abbreviation of words, their undallying
directness, even their prepayment with
Scent stamp, all imply the hurry of
our life and the engrossng engagement
of the writer, "And tell me" says one
of the delightful conservatives who are
as contemptuous of the nineteenth cen
fury as the nineteenth of the eighteenth
"tell me, who knows anything to-day of
the bliss of eager expectation in break
inc the seal-pshaw! there are seals no
longer mean in tearing the end OF an
envelope or cutting the guinmed
lappet- hideous denominations that was
known so well to our dear old ancestors.
The same severe critic, who insists
that we are in the rear not in the van
of time, and laments that he has been
left behind in the great march of ages
by the happy days of Addison and OF
glorious John, says he still has in his
possession the letter in which one of his
ancestors proposed for his wife, pro
posed not to the lady herself, but to her
brother, who was her guardian, and OF
whom he asked permission to pay his
addresses to the sister "Ah, that is in
deed Il letter. signs the lover of the
Addisonian epoch. "My progenitor
advanced TO the assault of the heart of
my great-great-grandmother like Mari
borough or Prince Eugene sitting down
before a fortified town. Extreme de-
liberation marked the strategical move
mentS of all these great commanders.
Ny ancestor drew his lines with marvel
Gus circumspection. After permission
had been received he opened siege in
due form. and pressing his amiable adj
vances with vgor and skill he ut
length compelled a surrender The be-
sieged garrison marched out with drums
beating and colors flying and all con
ceivable honors of war, andwas received
by the besieging General with respect
full courtesy which transformed sur
render into triumph. / describe it,
said the musing conservative, "under Il
military metaphor, But it was really
love-making in state and in full dress.
1t belonged to the loisuroly epoch of
letter-writing, of sealing-waX and inn
pressive seals, of high-bred courtesy
which did not permit gentlemen to
smoke when escorting ladies, nor to
dare to address them with clothes and
breath saturated with the smell of
cigarettes,
SO the old gentleman lamented and
remembered and pratted. He did not
reflect that the amiable advances and
assaults in which his ancestor took part
and the blushing surrender of the be-
sieged garrison, did not end with the
marriage Of his great-great-grand-
mother. The letter sheets are certainly
smaller, rs he avcrred, and the postage
is but trille, and waXen seals are much
left TO public offices and Sir Piercio
Shatton. But the important summons
to the garrison is still received with the
old perturbation, and the gummed en-
velope is torn with as much palpitating
eagerness as ever broke the wax of an
older day Such forms change, but
such facts remain. 1t Is not letter.
writing age. But the old Addison was
not quite correct in thinking II to be a
lost art; not only are letters OF the best
kind still written, but they still, when
they appear, belong to the best litera-
ture. Perhaps when these words are
read, the correspondence Of Emerson
and Carlyle will have been published,
II any reader believes that cheap post
age, hurry and the telegraph have
abolished letter-writing as a branch OF
literature, let him turn to the cores.
pondence and decide, ~ HWper'S Mag.
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