The Daily bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1882-1895, 1885-08-27
Che Jlailg g tllstin.
THURSDAY, AUG. 81, 1885.
A LOST ART.

In q recently puDllsned story by
Mr.. Walter Besant, that charming
author has the temcrity TO affirm
that letter writing as an art is not
extinct. Nay, he goes further. He
alleges that letters as copious and
as charming as any of the last
century are now constantly passing
through the Post Office. And he
adds to the sum of his hardihood by
ridiculing the correspondents of a
by-gone time as people who had TO
weigh every phrase, and think out
their epigrams and sweet things for
weeks beforehand. The reason for
this laborious method he attributes
to the fact that in the old days the
writer was conscious that his letters
would be shown about and, very
likely. read aloud. 1t is perhaps
scarcely fair to take the casual ex-
preston of novelist as seriously
rs though it were problem in
Euclid, or dissertation on Comic
Sections. Moreover, Mr.. Besant is
a humourist, with a touch delicate
ut times as that of Charles Lamb;
and humourists, we know, have a
sad habit of turning facts topsy-
turvy for the fun of the thing and
mere joy in the quaintness of the
inversion. 1t may hap, however,
that the author of 2heRecolt of
Nan is in earnest His ridicule of
the laboured epistles of our an
cestors may be genuine, and his be-
lief in the sweetness and light of
modern letter writing may be real
and simple faith. In that case, the
statement cannot be permitted to go
unchallenged. Conversation and
correspondence have alike deterior-
ated, and for reasons which are not
far to seek. 1t is true that the lower
orders, having, owing to the bene-
ficent operation of the School Board,
acquired a greater facility of ex-
preston and greater precision,
the ill-spelt and conventional forms
which passed as letters between
servant-maids have ceased to be in
vogue with those deserving charac-
tiers. No longer does Mary in the
country address her friend in town
in the well-worm exordium, My
dear Jane l hope you are quite well
as this leaves me at present" Edu-
cation has ameliorated, and indeed
reformed, all that. But in the upper
and middle classes there is observ-
able no such corresponding improve
ment. The art of letter writing is
lost art-lost, because not prac-
tised; and not practised because the
necessity for the art has ceased to
be.
There are certain numerically
small and select lotteries in which
even now the letter writer may be
discovered. Literary people, for
instance, are much given to the in
terchange of epistles sometimes
with a freedom which is also affected.
Mr.. Besant is a literary man, and
his correspondence, we may, without
impertinence say, is principally with
gentlemen of his own delightful
calling. We are happy to think that
the novelist's correspondence with
publishers is considerable. But
publishers, like other men, have
sadly fallen off in their correspond
ence since the early days of the
century, and their communications
are now valued rather for the en-
closure contained in the letter than
for the letter itself. For the pur-
poses of this argument, however,
may assume that the majority OF
the novelist's correspondents arc
those of his own profession. On
this account he will, no doubt. take
sanguine view of correspondence
generally. He judges the mass by
the contents of his own letter-boX
That is no fair test. The literary
man writes the vast majority of his
matter for the public. If he pens {
sentence, he is conscious that hun
dreds and thousands of eyes vii
perusc it. This knowledge ma
turally begets feeling of res
possibility, and in some writer's {
habit of restraint, or an affectation O
manner. When the author cease.
work for the day, when he has
we may venture on so commercial
an allusion-put up the shutters ant
shut the shop, he finds it impossible
to leave the tricks of the trade be
hind him. Inawkwardly, and witt
results infinitely more studied ant
formal when penning an epistle to
friend than when producing materia
for that which authors fondly cal
"the million" The late lamente'
Alexander Pope took infinite pain
with his correspondence, and
indeed was so vain of his effort