'Did Mrs. Broadbanks get letters from her home?' The maid thought that she did. She knew, at least, that, after the arrival of the mail, her mistress had spent some time in the bedroom by herself. John hurried to the bedroom.
'Hurrah!' he cried, a moment later. 'Here's the envelope! It is addressed in my mother's handwriting, and the postmark shows that it left England on March 16. The last letter left on February 17 and the envelope was addressed by my sister. So all's serene! Let's get back to Mosgiel!' John wrote a hurried note for Lilian; left it on the bed; and, in a few minutes, we were once more startling the rabbits on the road.
It is wonderful how often the envelope tells us all that we wish to know. I always feel sorry for the Postmaster-General. No man on the planet is under so great an illusion as is he. I can never read his annual report without amusement. It is a stirring romance; but the romance is, to some extent, the romance of fiction rather than the romance of fact. I know that it is a thankless task to rob a man of an illusion that makes him happy; but the interests of truth sometimes demand it. They do in this case. For it is not the Postmaster-General alone who has been tricked by the witchery of appearances; the fallacy is shared by all the members of his enormous staff. Every individual in the department, from the Minister down to the messenger-boy, is equally deceived. The annual report proves it. For, in this annual report, the Postmaster-General tells you how many millions of letters he and his subordinates have handled during the year. But have they? As a matter of fact, they have handled no letters at all—except dead letters, and dead things don't count. The Postmaster-General handles envelopes; that is all. Let him correct the statement in his next report.
It will involve him in no loss of prestige, for, as these three envelopes in the basket plead so plaintively, and as John Broadbanks discovered that moonlight night at Silverstream, envelopes have a significance of their own. The postman knows that. He never sees the letters; but the envelopes whisper to him a thousand secrets. He knows the envelopes that contain circulars, and he hands them to you with a look that is a kind of apology for having troubled you to answer the door. He knows the official envelopes that contain demands for rates, income taxes, and the like. If you are in his good books, he hands them to you sympathetically; if not, he secretly enjoys the fun. Here is an envelope marked 'Urgent'; here is one with a deep black border; here is one with silver edges! He cannot be quite deaf to all that these envelopes say. And here is one, addressed very neatly, to a young lady at the house at the corner. He brings an exactly similar envelope to the same fair recipient every other morning. On the morning on which he brings the envelope, she invariably scampers along the hall in order personally to receive the letters; on the alternate mornings her father or her sister usually respond to his ring. He never sees her letters; but he knows, he knows! The envelopes chatter to him all the way down the street. Envelopes are great gossips. They talk to the sorter; they talk to the collector; they talk to the postman; they talk to the receiver; and they even go on talking—like the trio that set me scribbling—after they have been tossed disdainfully into the waste-paper basket.
The letter may be interesting in its way; but the envelope reveals the essential things. When a man writes to me, he does not tell me what kind of a man he is; but, recognizing that it is of the utmost importance to me that this information should be placed at my disposal, he is good enough to impart it on the envelope. He smothers the envelope with hieroglyphs and signs which are more revealing than a photograph. It frequently happens that my reply is determined more by these signs than by anything that he says in the letter. The letter is probably stiff, formal, lifeless—like a tailor's model. But the envelope reveals individuality, character, life! The envelope's the thing! You find all sorts of things in envelopes; you never find any mock modesty there. Envelopes are never shy; they never stand on ceremony; they wait for no introduction; they begin to talk as soon as they arrive. The envelope tells me, by means of its postmark, of the locality from which it has come and of the length of time that it has spent upon the road. Then, swiftly establishing itself on friendly terms, it becomes personal, communicative, confidential. It tells me that the writer of the letter that I am about to read is a tidy man or a slovenly man, as the case may be. Sometimes an envelope will tell me that it was addressed by a feverish, impulsive, excitable man; another will assure me, proudly, that it was sent to me by a leisurely, composed, methodical man. 'I come,' boasts one envelope, 'from a painstaking and accurate man who is scrupulously careful to cross every "t" and dot every "i."' 'And I,' murmurs the envelope lying against it, 'come from a man who doesn't care a rap whether the "i's" have dots, or, for that matter, whether the dots have "i's"!' Here is an envelope that tells me that it has been sent to me by a very dilatory man! The letter is dated March 2; the postmark is dated March 6; he was four days in posting it! This envelope contains a letter earnestly requesting me to oblige the writer by speaking at a meeting which he is organizing, and he is kind enough to speak of the great value which he attaches to my services. But the good man has not the heart to deceive me. So, lest I should take the contents of the letter seriously, he tells me that he has not even troubled to find out how I spell my name or what initials I am pleased to bear. I recognize, of course, that the information imparted by the envelope is not to be implicitly trusted. A notorious gossip must always be heard with the greatest caution. But most people with much experience of correspondence, before answering a letter, like to hear what the envelope has to say about it.
Nature, I notice, is very careful about the envelopes in which she sends us her letters. The architecture of an orange is a marvel of symmetry and compactness; but who has not admired the color and formation of the peel? Is there anything on earth more delicate and ingenious than the wrappings of a maize-cob? The husks and rinds and pods and shells that we toss upon the rubbish-heap are masterpieces of design and execution. As a small boy, I found among my treasures three things that filled me with ceaseless wonder and admiration—the skin of horse-chestnuts, the cocoons of my silkworms and the shells of the birds' eggs that I brought home from the lane. I knew little about Nature in those days; but I instinctively based my first impressions on the envelopes that she sent; and, judging her by that sure standard, I felt that she must be wonderfully wise and good and beautiful.
It is considered correct, I understand, to say that one should not judge by outward appearances; but how can you help it? Envelopes will talk! I can never forget a tremendous impression made upon my mind a few weeks after I went to live in London. I was barely seventeen. I was feeling horribly lonely, and, on all sorts of subjects, I was desperately groping my way. One wet night, in passing down the Strand, I saw hundreds of people crowding into Exeter Hall. Moved by a sudden impulse, I followed. The adventure promised a new experience, and I was specializing in novelties. Then came the impression! It was not created by the arguments of the speakers, for, as yet, not one of them had spoken. It was created by their personal appearance. The chair was occupied by Sir Stevenson Arthur Blackwood—'Beauty Blackwood,' as he was called—and addresses were delivered by the Revs. Newman Hall, Donald Fraser, Marcus Rainsford and Archibald G. Brown. I could imagine nothing more picturesque than those five knightly figures—tall, dignified and stately. The spectacle completely captivated me. I gazed spellbound. While the great audience sang the opening hymn, my eyes roved from one handsome form to another, bestowing upon each the silent homage of boyish hero-worship. This happened more than thirty years ago; yet I am confident that I could easily write out a full and accurate report of each of the speeches delivered that night. So favorably had the envelopes impressed my mind! And so effectively had they prepared me for the letters they contained!
In every department of life it is the envelope that becomes emphatic. In describing at night the people with whom we have met during the day, we refer to 'the lady in the fur coat,' 'the girl in the red hat,' and 'the man in the grey suit.' The lady, the girl and the man—these are letters. The fur coat, the red hat and the grey suit are merely envelopes. Yet we feel that to speak of 'a lady,' 'a girl' or 'a man' is, in effect, to say nothing. It conveys no concrete idea. It lacks vividness, force, reality. But 'a lady in a fur coat,' 'a girl in a red hat,' 'a man in a grey suit'—these are pictures! The envelope makes all the difference.
We often say by way of the envelope what we cannot say so well in the body of the letter. Charles Dickens knew that; so did John Bunyan; so did the Greatest Master of all.
Dickens knew it. Indeed, somebody has as good as said that Dickens is all envelopes; he gives us the barrister's wig in mistake for the barrister, the beadle's cocked hat in mistake for the beadle, and so on. But if it is true, on the one hand, that Dickens is too fond of envelopes, it must be confessed, on the other, that he knows how to use them. Who can forget the night when David Copperfield and Mr. Peggotty set out together on one of those dreadful journeys that stood connected with the loss of little Emily? Before starting, Mr. Peggotty entered Emily's room. 'Without appearing to notice what he was doing,' said David Copperfield, 'I saw how carefully he adjusted the little room and finally took out of a drawer one of her dresses, neatly folded, and placed it on a chair. He made no allusion to these clothes, neither did I. There they had been waiting for her, many and many a night, no doubt.' Mr. Peggotty could not express in so many words all that he felt; but Emily, if she came, would see the dress lying ready for her, and would understand that everything was to be just as it always was. She would see the envelope; and the envelope would say more than any letter could possibly do.