Idaho semi-weekly world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1875-1908, 1890-04-08
ABOUT .ETTER-wRlTlNa.
An Old Fashion That Is Rapi"iy "s
ing Obsolete In Our Country

~, r..,,o, That Is Rapidly Becom
ing Obsolete In Our Country
II ia often enough said that the on
fashion of writing letters, when con-
sisted of keeping one eye upon Vhe eiieo'
likely to be produced upon the person "
whom the epistle was addressed anu oh'
nnon the effect to be wrought upon tns
nnblic when the correspondence should
Ultimately be published, has vanished
sro,,, tbe 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 lniheui
atalv or he sits down in cold blood "
write journal, with the express lnten
ton of having it posthumously prih'eo
We are franker than people were IN tns
generations behind us, and II TINS irahh
ness is largely tho result of cyniclsm'
still has its redeeming features ana
seens far more manly and less mawklsh
than the sentimentality which preceded
it,"
Rut il is not alone this sort of letter
writing which has gone out of vogue.
The family letter, which was lull VI
/
harmless gossip, has gone out OF tashloh
also. 1t was not written for publication
and to a certain extent the responsible
] itv for its disappearance rests upon the
/ newspapers which report every thing
that is worth attention and good deal
! that is not The suppositlon Is that II
ANYBODY cares to keep run OF things OF
this order he will take the trouble to
look in the newspapers for the lnforma'
ton he seeks, and it is therefore Idle 10
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 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; a 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
evon 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 stenographer 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 biographeI
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 vii
not be allowable to have engraved form:
for these as one does for his visiting
card, and to send neat printed slip il
reply to invitations. The postal care
, had its effect. At first many people
used it a little because of its conven
1 fence; then they abandoned it because
of its vulgarity, and of course could no
l bring themselves to return to the NOR,
!. laborious note after having become &C
A customed to this labor-saving contriv
l ance People telegraph to their friend
i now, and it is not certain that even love
1 letters are not superseded by the yellow
8 blanks of the companies. Perhaps il
!. the near future science will realize tn
: old fancy of a magic contrivance whicl
a enables distant friends to communicat
: with one another, no matter where the
9 may be; but, in the meantime, the lette
= goes more and more out of use, unit
there seems not little danger that i
will vanish altogether, and leave II
with no means of bridging space betwee;
parted friends save the unsentimenta
a and prosaic telegraph or telephone