Let us now pass on to say something concerning those different kinds of letters that we named. Letters of diplomacy are affairs in which words are used for the purpose of concealing or obscuring the author's meaning, and which always conclude: 'Yours, with distinguished consideration.' To this species of epistle, the 'non-committal style,' of which the late Martin Van Buren was reputed to be a perfect master, is best adapted. Diplomatists seldom desire to be comprehended; but occasionally, when they do, how luminously plain they can be! Witness that celebrated letter which Mr. Webster dictated to Edward Everett, and the latter put on paper to be sent to Austria's minister, the Chevalier Hulsemann. The 'distinguished consideration' of that discomfited official was exercised to an unpleasant extent; and the result is that Austria has ceased to instruct this republic.
Nothing is more difficult to compose than a letter of consolation or condolence. The more earnestly you desire to express sympathy and impart solace, the more impossible it seems to find gentle and appropriate terms. You would shun commonplaces and avoid sermonizing. You wish to say something simple, kind, soothing. And yet the reflection of how far short of the exigencies of the grief you would mitigate, fails your best and most effectual efforts, oppresses and restrains your pen.
Of letters of business, it is quite well to say as little as they say themselves: 'Yours received; contents noted. Yours, &c.' As brevity is the soul of wit, so is it the soul of a business letter—the argument of which should be ad rem, to the matter; cum punctu, with point.
Letters of invitation and congratulation are often mere formalities, although there is a way of infusing kindness, courtesy, and sincerity into them, especially into the latter, which ought at least to seem to be in cordial earnest.
Letters of introduction and recommendation are very difficult to write, because most people endeavor to give an original turn to their expressions. After all, it is judicious, in the composition of such affairs, to follow the briefest and most usual formulas, unless, indeed, you desire to introduce and recommend some particular person in downright reality, and then the farther you deviate from mere customary expressions the better. And if you are truly in earnest, you need be at no loss what to say: the words will suggest themselves.
Letters of friendship may be divided into two sorts—real and pretended. A real letter of friendship commends itself directly to the heart. There is a warm, genial glow about it, as welcome as the blaze of a hickory or sea-coal fire to one coming in from the cold, bitter breeze of a December night. It makes one philanthropic and a believer in human goodness. What cheer—what ardent cheer is there in a letter unexpectedly received from an old friend between whom and one's self roll years of absence, or stretch lands and seas of distance! It is like a boon from the very heaven of memory. But a pretended letter of friendship—how easily detected! how transparent its falsity! The loadstone of love touches it, and finds it mere brass. Its influence is icy and bleak, like the rays of the moon, from which all the lenses on earth cannot extract one particle of heat.
And what can be said of love letters—those flowers of feeling, those redundant roses of recapitulation? There is one strain running through their first parts, and then—da capo. They are the same thing, over and over and over again, and then—repeat. Yet are they never wearisome to those who write or to those who acceptably receive. They are like the interviews of their writers, excessively stupid to everybody else, but exquisitely charming to themselves; that is, real love letters; not those absurd things—amusing from their very absurdity—which novelists palm off upon innocent readers as the correspondence of heroes and heroines. Verily is there a distinction between letters written by lovers and love letters. The former may be deeply interesting to uninterested readers, while the latter are the very quintessence of egotistical selfishness; for, indeed, lovers may sometimes write about other matters besides love, as, for example, in the famous epistles of Abelard and Héloïse.
'Heaven first taught letters for some wretch's aid,
Some banish'd lover or some captive maid;
They live, they breathe, they speak what love inspires,
Warm from the soul, and faithful to its fires;
The virgin's wish without her fears impart,
Excuse the blush, and pour out all the heart;
Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul,
And waft a sigh from Indus to the pole.'
About the other kinds of letters which have been enumerated, we shall have nothing to say; because they are letters rather in name than in reality.
The fashion prevalent in modern days, to publish on the demise of an author pretty much all his private correspondence, proves the general interest which is felt in mere letters. Many of these are utterly worthless, vastly inferior to those which constantly pass between friends on the topics of the hour or their own affairs. It is charitable to conjecture that their writers never imagined that they could be exposed in print, or would not be burned as soon as read. And yet, with what avidity are they conned and discussed! Look at the letters of Lord Byron, Moore, and Campbell. How much brainless twattle do they contain, amid a few grains of wit and humor. What mere commonplace! Editors may as well publish every word a man says, as what he writes familiarly in his dressing gown and slippers. We have not a doubt that by far the best letters ever written still remain unpublished. There are many printed volumes of travels very inferior to those which could be made up from the letters of private persons abroad, composed purely for the delectation of friends. There is hardly anything so difficult in writing as to write with ease. They who write letters on purpose to be published, feel and show a constraint which a mere private correspondent never entertains nor exhibits.