To this, the twittering, delightful familiarities of Stevenson:
"Two Sundays ago the sad word was brought that the sow was out again; this time she had brought another in her flight. Moors and I and Fanny were strolling up to the garden, and there by the waterside we saw the black sow looking guilty. It seemed to me beyond words; but Fanny's cri du coeur was delicious. 'G-r-r!' she cried; 'nobody loves you!'"
It was the same art in big and little, for each stripped off pretense and boldly revealed his moment's personality.
And yet, and yet, a letter does not depend upon any artistic quality or glib facility with words, for its interest. The one test of a letter is that it must bring the writer close to your side. You must fasten your mood on me, so that I shall be you for hours afterward. It sounds easy enough, but it is the most difficult thing in the world, to be one's self. "I long for you, I long for you so much that I thank God upon my knees that you are not here!" There, now, is a letter that promises well, but I dare not quote more of it, for the subject must be seen from another side.
The Caste of the Articulate
Fair or unfair though it be, I have come to accept a letter as the final test of the personality of a new acquaintance. Not of his or her intellect or moral worth, perhaps, but the register of that rare power which dominates all attributes--that peculiar aroma, flavour, timbre, or colour which makes some of our friends eternally exceptional. "Who dares classify him and label him, sins against the Holy Ghost; I, for one, think I know him only inasmuch as I refuse to sum him up. I cannot find his name in the dictionary; I cannot make a map of him; I cannot write his epitaph." So writes Sonia of a friend with such a personality, and you will see by this that Sonia herself is of the caste of the Articulate.
We are influenced first by sight, then by sound, and, lastly, by the written word. "She spoke, and lo! her loveliness methought she damaged with her tongue!" is the description of many a woman who appeals to the eye alone. And in something the same way many who fascinate us with their glamour while face to face, shock us by the dreary commonplaceness of their letters.
It would seem that an interesting person must inevitably write an interesting letter,--indeed, that should be a part of the definition of the term interesting. But many decent folk are gagged with constraint and self-consciousness, and never seem to get free.
"I wonder," says Little Sister, "whether these wordless folk may not, after all, really feel much more deeply than we who write?" That is a troublesome question, and in its very nature unanswerable, since the witnesses are dumb. No doubt they feel more simply and unquestioningly, for as soon as a thing is once said its opposite and contradictory side, as true and as necessary, reacts upon us. But it seems to me that expression does not so much depend upon any spiritual insight, or even upon especial training, as it does upon the capacity for being one's self frankly and simply. That is the only thing necessary to make the humblest person interesting, and yet nothing is so difficult as to be one's self in this wild, whirling world.
Expression is but another name for revelation. Unless one is willing to expose one's self like Lady Godiva, or protected only by such beauty and sincerity as hers, one can go but a little way in the direction of individuality. We must sacrifice ourselves at every turn, show good and bad alike, and laugh at ourselves too. "Would that mine enemy might write a book!" is no insignificant curse, and yet there are tepid, colourless authors who might hazard it with safety; no one would ever discover the element of personality.