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The People We Write To
“The Gentler View,” Harper’s Weekly (Advertiser; April 30, 1910) : 29
hathitrust : link
 

      The people we write to cease to be, after a goodly period of interchanged letters, the same friends we once knew through speech, and are not to be found by seeing again the recipients of our letters. It is possible to join the physical presence we are confronted with now, to the person we knew years ago, but the writer of the letters we have received so frequently and with such pleasure remains a separate personality. He so refuses to be joined to the figure of the past or the actuality of the present — a thing so concrete as to make us a little shy of it , so little known in comparison with the familiar correspondent — that we are fairly forced to resort to him to write a letter, even though it is only sent a block away, in order to communicate with this stranger to whom we have been for so long disclosing our thoughts.
      In writing there is nothing to repel or embarrass expression. Our own voices do not frighten us, the eyes of the other person do not create an atmosphere antipathetic to our subject. Surroundings cannot force a mood, a mood that binds and shapes our presentment of ourselves. There is just the envelope, waiting for whatever you enclose in it, bound to deliver whatever your inclination prompts. Everything is so free, so open, you say what you please with no need of its being apropos, with nothing but the need of a pen point to insure an amusing half-hour. Naturally all the merits of the situation reflect on the recipient of your letters, the person who is always so accommodatingly there when wanted, who is never self-absorbed or out of town, but always appears when you sit at your desk, attentive, shadowy (it is the indefinite outlines that make all possible, for anything more defined would suggest limitations), and sympathetically appreciative of what you are about to write. Nothing could be more grateful than this, as you are not quite sure yourself of what it is to be.
      To write to a smile, a point of view — what could be more perfect? It is like running without the necessity of dragging one’s cumbersome body through space. It has all the delight of those dances we execute in our sleep — leaps across rivers, kicks that scatter clouds, a puff-ball weight that makes alighting unnecessary and rests secured by reclining on tree-tops. Occasionally answers come at pleasantly unexpected moments, carefully considered answers that show that one’s remarks were read. This is an attention that never fails to touch one in a tender spot. Answers so full of a warm friendliness and whimsical pleasure. Answers that make you realize you, too, are a correspondent, as unattached, and consequently inviting, as the other ever seemed to you. This point once reached, a sheet of paper takes on the properties of a mask, not terrifying, but enticing; and, shielded by it, using it as a mouthpiece for endless vagaries, absurdities, boldnesses, and experiments, we venture far because hiding so safely behind ita sheet of paper takes on the properties of a mask, not terrifying, but enticing; and, shielded by it, using it as a mouthpiece for endless vagaries, absurdities, boldnesses, and experiments, we venture far because hiding so safely behind it.
      Then in our silly disregard of the rules of the game (every mirage is seen under conditions which must be observed) we think, if the sender of the letters is so entertaining, the more we see of him the greater our entertainment. We meet to be tongue-tied and dashed, convulsed at the anti-climax, laboriously uttering platitudes, strange and shy with this jangling mannikin, this puppet deprived of the spirit of its manipulator, this clumsily working mechanism of which we know so little that we are unable to pull a single string with creditable results, our every effort only adding to its loose-jointed inconsequence. We are appalled at what has happened, and we rush frantically to our desk and pour out full humorous confession as to the grotesque thing that has occurred. The correspondent replies with a like account, and together in complete intimacy you bemoan and rock with laughter, all on paper, be it understood, the bungled meeting at cross purposes of those two poor souls without pens.

Post-cards are growing in popularity, and the gloom of the recipient grows with them. There is no argument of convenience that can be advanced sufficient to counteract the complete staleness of them by the time they have reached you. The messages have been besmirched equally by interest or indifference on the part of those for whom they were not intended. The bits of cardboard have passed through so many hands that, though they bear a message long looked for, it is read gingerly, the eye picking it out fastidiously, a little loath to touch it at all, and accompanying the performance with delicate sniffings. If the sender cannot take the precaution to put what he sends you under cover, by the time it arrives it has taken on so public an air that it seems no more for you than for any one else, and no more from the sender than a blowing leaf is from any my particular tree. Post-cards are communistic things, and only a highly socialized person can approve their existence.Post-cards are communistic things, and only a highly socialized person can approve their existence. If you love your fellow man to the extent of loving being elbowed by him, then you will not mind a message that smacks of having pushed its way through a crowd, and accosts you with dented hat, dishevelled head , and a noticeable lack of pristine freshness, of individuality, of that bloom that makes us us to our friends. A signature on a post-card invariably looks a forgery, the sentiments sound as though penned by the postman, the picture on the back is printed in colors of fortunately fictitious crudeness, and the mornings which bring only a couple of post-cards are mornings unblessed by mail.

      One wants company in succumbing to the minor vices; the virtues can be managed alone. In fact, if any one is going in for virtues it is rather pleasant to be the only one present practising them.In fact, if any one is going in for virtues it is rather pleasant to be the only one present practising them. It makes the austerity of one’s nature more marked. But to gourmandize, for instance, alone, is out of the question. Some one else must promise to take a second artichoke if you contemplate so demeaning yourself. If one is about to be disgusting there is no reason for standing out from the rest of mankind. Get the creatures to resemble one as much as possible, then one’s own little peccadilloes will hardly be noticed, or, if remarked upon, can be hotly defended with: “I am only doing what every one else is doing. It’s the ordinary average behavior, what are you putting on airs for?” There is something lonely and flat in an unaccompanied foolishness. Having no argument in support of what you are doing, to be relied on in case of need, numbers are necessary, for if the majority is wrong it has, at least, all the courage of its cussedness. If, on the other hand, one refuses indigestible, heavy delicacies, shak-ing one’s head at them with a sweet self-abnegation, it is nothing short of impertinent to have some one on the other side of the table loudly applaud your good sense and ostensibly imitate you. If the straight and narrow road is to become crowded one will feel forced to choose another path. The charms of virtue are not manifold, and exclusiveness has always been one of the few that could be counted on by those who sought diversion in this direction. The charms of virtue are not manifold, and exclusiveness has always been one of the few that could be counted on by those who sought diversion in this direction. To be joined in a noble stand introduces a spirit of chumminess, implies a mitigation of the attendant pain, almost giving the impression that nobility is not difficult of attainment or possible only to the few. It is hard to understand how people can be so lacking in penetration as to scramble to your heights, simply and heartily. Without criticising their right or their intentions, one is still unable to repress a cold stare and permissible question of, “And who asked you to come up here, may I ask?”
 

6 August 2023