Evening star., 1937-12-03

~ tiers. some people like to write
letters. But most people do
- not know how to write letters.
This has no reference to the literary
merit of an epistle or to the gift for
expression and eloquence OF the writer,
but simply to the failure of the aver
age letter to tell you what you want
to know, or to chirk you up or give
you some pleasant thought to null
over. 1t is appalling to think OF the
tons of good white paper and the bar
rels Of ink that are wasted every day
on letters that convey no other infor-
nation than that the writer's are still
alive and able to take pen in hand.
Now chief among these letter writers
who should have something drastic
done to them are those who never
answer a question. You make some
inquiry of vital importance to you.
Have they sold the house? What COL
lege have they decided to send Johnny
to? How is Mary's cough? Would
Janey like to come and make you
nice long visit?
You eagerly await the answer and,
when it comes. grab it out of the post
mans hand. but when you open the
nice long letter it is all taken up
with description of some party your
correspondent went to, and what a
lovely dress some woman you never
heard Of had on, or the beautiful
prize she won at bridge game. Not
a peep on the things you asked about.
GETTING conversation out of clam
is no trick at all compared to get
ting information out of a correspond
ent, though there would be no surer
way Of any one attaining a reputation
as a brilliant letter writer than just
to take a letter and answer the ques-
tions that were asked in it.
Then there Is the correspondent
who deals in glittering generalities in
stead of coming down to brass tacks
and telling you the little intimate,
personal things about themselves and
their families and the people
you know. They rehash every
thing that you have already read
in the papers and the magazines and
60 into the details of an international
scandal instead of telling you the
gossip about the woman next door.
You could cry with disappointment
when you are away from home and
you get letter that is q dissertation
upon some abstract subject when you
are longing to hear if the Jones girl
finally caught the Brown boy and the
latest cute thing the baby did.
Next among the letter. writer's who
should be suppressed are the walters.
All of us possess among our corre-
spondents those who make the La
mentations of jeremiah read like a
cheer song, and we never see their
handwriting on the back OF an en-
velope without its sending our spirits
down to zero For well we know that
1t will be q recital Of woes and
troubles and tribulations that is
enough to drive even an optimist to
drink or suicide.
It is queer thing that many people
who are the jolliest of conversation
alists 60 melancholy mad when they
dip grandly into the ink, as Barrie
used to say. II they were talking to
you, they would tell you a funny story,
but when they write to you their let
ters are full of automobile accidents,
funerals, divorces and defaulters, and
you are left feeling that there Is not
ray Of sunshine left in the world.
THEN there are the letters that
should never be written at all.
Letters written in anger that say
bitter, wicked, unforgivable things
that we do not really mean at
the time and that we forget as soon
as we cool of. but that stand forever
against us in black and white.
Mushy love letters that seem so ro-
mantle and poetic when one is writing
them and sound 80 asinine when they
are read aloud in court and which 80
often have to be bought back at
price higher than any other literary
composition commands. Surely every
man. and woman who is tempted to
write . love letter should take counsel