With every gliding vowel and slashing consonant, we string together beautiful words, and in their perfection we deposit a tiny bit of our soul in that white piece of parchment. You see, we live in a world where words have been hacked into letters and numbers, “how r u?” “Gr8!” and where over-impulsive text messages have become the norm. We are forever online, and we are reprimanded when we disappear for just a few minutes, “Why didn’t you answer? I saw you were online 5 minutes ago.” “Why didn’t you respond if it shows the text as ‘read’?” I think we have all been there, have we not?
All of these incessant messages and unread texts fade into the background when you discern among your seemingly endless bank statements and take-out clippings, a crisp and elegant envelope with your name on it. A letter just for you.
A letter is the embodiment of the writer living in that precious moment. When you receive a letter in your hands you will feel their essence hidden in every thought-out word. Letters are succulent and filled with passion, even those that were written centuries ago still have the power to seduce the reader, and we’re not even the original addressees. Take Keats as an example; he ate his nectarine 200 years ago and we can still savor it,
“Talking of Pleasure, this moment I was writing with one hand, and with the other holding to my Mouth a Nectarine – good God, how fine. It went down soft, pulpy, slushy, oozy – all its delicious embonpoint melted down my throat like a large beatified Strawberry.”
So, you can imagine this poet basking in the Italian sun, savoring his nectarine, and scribbling this letter down with gusto. That is the power of letter writing. Letters live in the material world and are the conduits allowing you to travel into the past and relive lost loves and precious friendships. You can hold them in your hands, and as you see the ink fade away, the feelings of the writer remain etched in their handwriting. Even if those feelings changed with time, they are equally precious.
Texts and e-mails are comprised of pixels and they vanish in the endless expanse of the Internet. Words of love lose their touch in every perfect font that is typed out. Beautiful stationary and elegant words strung together with thought and precision: the very foundations of civilization.
Willis Westlake’s How to Write Letters manual (1876) gives invaluable insight into this forgotten art form and among the many rules he doles out, there are three rules that are indispensable in every letter you write.
Supreme Excellence
“The supreme excellence of a familiar letter is naturalness. Such a letter should be unstudied free from affectation, and as nearly as possible like good conversation.”
Given how we are so used to e-mails and texts, white paper can seem daunting, and the way we write can become stilted. So, stretch your arms, scribble a bit beforehand, and finally delve into the white expanse of vellum. Imagine yourself in a coffee house sharing a drink with a friend and letting it all go. “We all like talking letters -good talking, of course,” James says, and I agree with him, so talk away.
Little Things
“Don’t be afraid to write of little things. To one who loves us, nothing that concerns us is trivial or uninteresting.” The rule is simple: if you have something to talk about, then it is worth writing about. The trivial brings people together, and it creates a picture with all its precious associations that makes you forget about the distance separating you from your future reader.
Affection
The best letters are dictated by the heart rather than the head. A loving heart naturally imparts a glow to the written page and this warmth is communicated by the mysterious power of words, to the heart of the reader.
A loving word is inexpressively precious, filling the soul with sunshine, and making it for a time oblivious of the pain of separation.
Imagine the stain of ink on your fingers as you pen down your name at the bottom right corner and the little sigh of relief that you didn’t misspell or jumble up your thoughts. As you send the letter off, you cannot foresee the reaction of the receiver, but one thing is for sure, when you are old and your hands are wrinkled by the passing of time, you can open one of these letters, and as if it were yesterday, relive the burning emotions of the writer.
If you are in love with the epistolary art, we suggest you read the following:
The Most Passionate Love Letters History Has For Us
