It is perhaps superfluous, but for completeness' sake may be permissible, to say a very little about the use of letters for purposes other than that of genuine personal communication. Indeed in doing so we are only executing the time-honoured manœuvre of returning to the point whence we set out, and bringing the wheel full circle.[54] The strictly "business" letter—which is, of course, a personal communication in a way—and the "despatch" which is a form of it intended sooner or later for more general information, require no notice or at best mere mention. But in times past if not also in those present, "Letters" have been used—specially perhaps in that century of letters, the eighteenth—for purposes of definite instruction, argument, propaganda and so forth. There are obvious advantages in the form for certain of the lighter of these purposes as it is used in Montesquieu's Lettres Persanes or Goldsmith's Citizen of the World. But why Bishop Hurd's Letters on Chivalry and Romance (really valuable as they are) should have been "Letters" at all, except for fashion's sake, it is difficult to say. There is perhaps more excuse for the pamphlet, especially the political pamphlet, assuming the title of letter as it has so often done in instances from the great example of Bolingbroke and Burke downwards.[55] You have, with less unreality, the advantage of the classical "speech" addressed often to a single person, who is supposed to be specially aware of the facts or specially to need instruction and encouragement, or modified remonstrance, as to them. It was probably from these great exemplars—perhaps also aided by the custom of eighteenth century periodicals, that pamphlets of all kinds became titular epistles such as "A Letter to the deputy-manager of a Theatre Royal, London, on his lately acquired notoriety in contriving and arranging the 'Hair Powder Act'" (but this was satire), or "A letter writ by a clergyman to his neighbour concerning the kingdom and the allegiance due to the King and Queen."[56]
letters to the papers
For a last class may be taken the ever increasing body of things "written to the papers." It is unnecessary to consider the justice of a sarcastic division of mankind into "those who write to the papers and those who do not read the letters," or to discuss what men have been heard to say—that the people who write to papers are people who have not written in them. It is quite certain that, for many years past, the less frivolous kind of newspaper-correspondence has been of admitted interest and importance; indeed a paper might conceivably maintain its position after its repute has sunk in other ways, simply because more letters of importance appear in it than in others. As a source of illustrations of how to write and how not to write letters this modern development of the art could hardly be quite neglected; and it offers a curious study of various kinds. Except with very guileless writers the character-index quality is of course less certainly present than in letters written not for publication. A man must be, in the old Greek phrase, "either a God or a beast," if he does not prepare for print—if not exactly with a touch of "stage-fright," at any rate with the premeditation with which even stage-fright-free actors go on the stage. But it requires a great master or mistress of dissimulation to write even these letters at all frequently without a certain amount of self-revelation. And there is perhaps no more curious and interesting part of that most curious and interesting business of editing than (when it is not merely tedious), the reading of offered correspondence. There is the pure lunatic, such as the man who for years sends despatches in a sort of cuneiform cipher, probably quite meaningless and certainly not likely to meet with a decipherer; there is the abusive person who (less piquantly than Reade in the letter quoted above) gives his opinion of your paper; the volunteer-corrector of obvious misprints; the innocent who merely wants to see his own signature in print, and who generally tries to bribe his way into it by references to "your powerful journal," etc. They are all there—waiting for the waste-paper basket.
VII
CONCLUSION
A few more general remarks may close this Introduction. Something on the Art of Letter-writing and also something on its history, especially in English, was promised. It is hoped that the promise has not been too much falsified, at least to the extent necessary for illustration and understanding of the specimens which should follow, and which in their turn should illustrate it and make it more intelligible. The History part requires little or no postscript; whether ill or well done it should pretty well speak for itself. What touches the Art may require certain cautions and provisos.
This is especially the case with regard to the stress laid above on "naturalness." It is (as the present writer at least believes) the very passport of admission to the company of good letter-writers. But it must not be misconstrued. It is quite possible that too little care may be taken with the matter and style of letters. After all they correspond—in a certain, if in the most limited degree—to appearance "in company," and require as that does a certain etiquette of observance. Complete deshabille[57] on paper is not attractive: and there are letters (it is unnecessary to specify any particular examples) which somewhat exaggerate "simplicity."
Cowper is perhaps the accepted classic in this style who has the least of apparatus: but even Cowper bestows a certain amount of care—indeed, a very considerable amount—on the dress of his letter's body, on the cookery of its provender. If you have only small beer to chronicle you can at the worst draw it and froth it and pour it out with some gesture. In this respect as in others, while letter-writing has not been inaccurately defined or described as the closest to conversation of literary forms that do not actually reproduce conversation itself, it remains apart from conversation and subject to an additional degree of discipline.