Anger in a letter carries with it the effect of solidified fury; the words spoken in reproof melt with the breath of the speaker once the cause is forgiven. The written words on the page fix them for eternity.
Love in a letter endures likewise forever.
Admonitions from parents to their children may very properly be put on paper—they are meant to endure, and be remembered, but momentary annoyance should never be more than briefly expressed. There is no better way of insuring his letters against being read than for a parent to get into the habit of writing irritable or faultfinding letters to his children.
The Letters Of Two Wives
Do you ever see a man look through a stack of mail, and notice that suddenly his face lights up as he seizes a letter "from home"? He tears it open eagerly, his mouth up-curving at the corners, as he lingers over every word. You know, without being told, that the wife he had to leave behind puts all the best she can devise and save for him into his life as well as on paper!
Do you ever see a man go through his mail and see him suddenly droop—as, though a fog had fallen upon his spirits? Do you see him reluctantly pick out a letter, start to open it, hesitate and then push it aside? His expression says plainly: "I can't face that just now." Then by and by, when his lips have been set in a hard line, he will doggedly open his letter to "see what the trouble is now."
If for once there is no trouble, he sighs with relief, relaxes, and starts the next thing he has to do.
Usually, though, he frowns, looks worried, annoyed, harassed, and you know that every small unpleasantness is punctiliously served to him by one who promised to love and to cherish and who probably thinks she does!
The Letter Everyone Loves To Receive
The letter we all love to receive is one that carries so much of the writer's personality that she seems to be sitting beside us, looking at us directly and talking just as she really would, could she have come on a magic carpet, instead of sending her proxy in ink-made characters on mere paper.