The Mason County journal. [volume] (Shelton, W.T.) 1886-1927, 1890-04-04
ABOUT LETTER-WRiTlNG.
An old Fashion That Is Rapidly Becom
ing Obsolete in Our Country.

An Oid Fashion That Is Rapidly Becom
ing Obsolete in Our Country.
1t is often enough said that the old
fashion of writing letters, which con-
sisted of keeping one eye upon the effect
likely to be produced upon the person to
whom the epistle was addressed and ons
upon the effect to be wrought upon the
public when the correspondence should
ultimately be published, has vanished
from the face of the earth. If anybody
wishes to address the public nowadays
he does it at first hand by writing some
thing and getting it into print immedi
ately, or he sits down in cold blood to
write journal, with the express inten
ton OF having it posthumously printed.
We are franker than people were in the
generations behind US, and if this frank
ness is largely the result of cynicism, i
still has it's redeeming features and
seems far more manly and less mawkish
than the sentimentality which preceded
it."
But it is not alone this sort of letter
writing which has gone out of vogue.
The family letter, which was full OF
family news, of domestic details, Of
harmless gossip, has gone out of fashion
also. 1t was not written for publication,
and to certain extent the responsible
ity for its disappearance rests upon the
newspapers which report every thing
that is worth attention and good deal
that is not. The supposition is that if
anybody cares to keep run of things OF
this order he will take the trouble to
look in the newspapers for the informa-
ton he seeks, and it is therefore idle to
waste time in putting them down upon
the pages of a private letter. 1t is more
over true that family ties are less loose
than they were of old. When, in the
days of our fathers, young man went
away from home he was apt to feel that
he still belonged to the old circles; or at
least he took an interest in the doing of
the folk he had left behind him. He
was expected to, and that in itself
counted for a good deal. Now in the in
crease of worldly wisdom, it is assumed
that the youth who goes from home
leaves the old behind him and Identifies
himself with the new; theory which
under modern conditions, is generally
necessarily true. 1t follows that he
does not manifest interest in his old as
sociates to any marked degree, and as a
consequence it is of no especial use to
write the Dews to him.
The decline of letter writing goes
even father than this, however. 1t is
rapidly getting to be the habit of our
people not to write letters of any sort
save the epistles which are indispens-
able in bus mess, and these are not only
rendered far less numerous than of old
by the use of telegraph and telephone,
but when unavoidable are largely given
over to the stenogra pher and the type
writer. Among literary people letter
writing is perhaps more nearly extinct
than anywhere else; so that one won
ders how in the world the biographer
of the future is to fill out his volumes,
and what he will find to take the place
of the vOluminous correspondence which
makes up the bulk of so many biogra-
phies. The formal notes of courtesy
still obtain, but it is impossible, to be
sure, that in a few years more it will
not be allowable to have engraved forms
for these as one does for his visiting
card, and to send neat printed slip in
reply to invitations. The postal card
had it's effect. At first many people
used it little because of it's conven-
fence; then they abandoned it because
of it's vulgarity, and of course could not
bring themselves to return to the more
laborious note after having become &C
customed to this labor-saving contriv-
ance. People telegraph to their friends
now, and it is not certain that even love-
letters are not superseded by the yellow
blanks of the companies. Perhaps in
the near future science will realize the
old fancy of a magic continuance which
enables distant friends to communicate
with one another, no matter where they
may be; but, in the meantime, the letter
goes more and more out of use, until
there seems not little danger that it
will vanish altogether, and leave US
with no means of bridging space between
parted friends save the unsentimental
and prosaic telegraph or telephone
Boston Courier