Dear Mr. Plitt:
Remember, Orkv was not excavated in a week. It took the Terrestrials many centuries to develop their exquisite and esoteric art forms. How can you expect to comprehend them in a few short years? Expose yourself to their art. Work, study, meditate.
Understanding will come, I promise you.
Helpfully yours,
Senbot Drosmig
Paris
Dear Senbot Drosmig:
To think that I am enjoying the benefits of Terra while my wife and little ones are forced to remain on Fizbus makes my heart ache. Surely it is not fair that I should have so much and they so little. Imagine the inestimable advantage to the fledgling of even a short contact with Terrestrial culture!
Why cannot my loved ones come to join me so that we can share all these wonderful spiritual experiences and be enriched by them together?
Poignantly yours,
Tpooly N'Ox
Dear Mr. N'Ox:
After all, it has been only five years since Fizbian spaceships first came into contact with Terra. In keeping with our usual colonial policy—so inappropriate and anachronistic when applied to a well-developed civilization like Terra's—at first only males are allowed to go to the new world until it is made certain over a period of years that the planet is safe for mothers and future mothers of Fizbus.
But Stet Zarnon himself, the celebrated and capable editor of the Terran edition of The Fizbus Times, has taken up your cause, and I promise you that eventually your loved ones will be able to join you.
Meanwhile, work, study, meditate.
Helpfully yours,
Senbot Drosmig
Ottawa
Dear Senbot Drosmig:
Having just completed a two-year tour of duty on Earth as part of a diplomatic mission, I am regretfully leaving this fair planet. What books, what objects of art, what, in short, souvenirs shall I take back to Fizbus which will give our people some small idea of Earth's rich cultural heritage and, at the same time, serve as useful and appropriate gifts for my friends and relatives back Home?
Inquiringly yours,
Solgus Zagroot
Dear Mr. Zagroot:
Take back nothing but your memories. They will be your best souvenirs.
Out of context, any other mementos might convey little, if anything, of the true beauty and advanced spirituality of Terrestrial culture, and you might cheapen them were you to use them crassly as souvenirs. Furthermore, it is possible that you, in your ignorance, might unwittingly select some items that give a distorted and false idea of our extrafizbian friends.
The Fizbian-Earth Cultural Commission, sponsored by The Fizbian Times, in conjunction with the consulate, is preparing a vast program of cultural interchange. Leave it to them to do the great work, for you can be sure they will do it well.
And be sure to tell your fellow-laborers in the diplomatic vineyards that it is wiser not to send unapproved Terran souvenirs back Home. They might cause a fatal misunderstanding between the two worlds. Tell them to spend their time on Earth in working, studying and meditating, rather than shopping.
Helpfully yours,
Senbot Drosmig