The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-12-29
ROMANCE AND THE POSTWAR.
A Writer Finds Poetry i'm the PrOsaic
Facts of Everyday Life.
Myrtle Reed, in the Critic

Myrtle Reed, in the Critic.
A letter. Does the charm and uncer-
tainty of it ever fade? Who knows what
may be written upon the pages within!
Far back, in a dim, dream-haunted child
hood the first letter came to us. 1t was "a
really, truly letter." properly stamped and
addressed, and duly delivered by the post
man. With what wonder the chubby fingers
broke the seal 1t did not matter that
there was an inclosure to ones mother. and
that the thing itself was written by an
adoring relative; it was a personal letter,
of private and particular Importance, and
that day the postman assumed his rightful
place in ones affairs
In the treasure box of many a grand
mother is hidden pathetic scrawl that the
DaDy made Tor her and called "a letter.
To the alien eye il is a mere tangle of
pencil marks, and the baby himself, grown
TO manhood, with children of his own,
would laugh at the yellowed message which
is put away with his christening robe and
his first shoes, but to one, at least it speaks
with a deathless voice.
1t is written in books and papers that
some unhappy mortals are swamped with
mail A woman recently wrote to Presi-
dent Roosevelt: Il suppose you get
many letters that when you see the post
man coming down the street you don't care
whether he has anything for you or not"
Indeed, the President might we'll think
the universe had suddenly gone wrong if
cOmpensations in everything. The First
Gentleman of the Republic must inevitably
miss the pleasant emotions which letters
bring to most of US.
The clerks and carriers in the business
centers may be pardOned if they lose sight
of the potentialities of the letters that pass
through their hands. When q skyscraper is
a postal district in itself there is no time
for the man in gray to think of the burden
he carries, save as so many pounds of dead
weight, becoming appreciably lighter at
each stop. But outside the hum and hustle
on quiet streets and seclued byways, there
are faces at the windows, watching eagerly
for the mail
Roman triumph, for in his leathern pack lies
Fate. Long experience has given him a
sixth sense, as if the letters breathed a
hint of their contents through their super
scriptions The business letter, crisp and
to the point, has an atmosphere of its own
even where crosS-lines OF typewriting do not
show through the envelope. The long
rambling, friendly letter is distinctive and
if it has been carried in a pocket a long
time before mailing the poStman knows
that the writer is a married woman with a
foolish trust in her husband. Circulars
addressed mechanically, at so much a thou
sand, never deceive the pOstman though
the recipient often opens them with pleas
to zero. And the love lettersi The carrier
is a veritable Sherlock Holmes when it
comes to those.
Gradually he becomes acquainted with
the inmOst secrets Of those upon his route
Friendship love and marriage absence and
return, death and ones financial condition
are all as an open book to the man in gray
Invitations, cards, wedding announcements
forlOrn little letters from those to whom
writing is not as easy as speech. childish
epistles with scrap pictures pasted on the
outside-al give inking of their con-
tents to the man who delivers them.