The Joy Of Letters: Sweet Memories Can Live For Decades
Writing letters has been nearly a lifetime habit for me. Now I am still trying to remember to add a one-cent stamp to each of the 32-cent stamps I have left on my desk.
When I first began writing letters, the stamps were only 3 cents. Now when we write "Dear . . ." we know how dear that person is, but it's worth it.
One of life's greatest joys is to receive a letter from someone we love. One of the dangers of e-mail is that we cease to write letters that can be read and re-read.
I have many letters on my desk waiting for an answer. Through the years I have tried to answer all of the correspondence that I get, but it's hard to keep up. I can understand what Lord Byron meant when he said, "One of the pleasures of reading old letters is the knowledge that they need no answers."
It is by the benefit of letters that absent friends are in a manner brought together. In a moment when we feel sad or low, it is often good to read over some of the positive letters we have received from family or friends. "As long as there are postmen," said William James, "life will have zest."
A happy life is made up of little things in which smiles and small favors are given habitually - a gift sent, a call made or a letter written. Letters should be easy and natural, and convey to the people to whom we send them just what we would say if we were with them.
The story runs that when Henry James proposed marriage to Elizabeth Jordan, he wrote a letter couched in so involved and complicated a style that she could not possibly understand it. She answered it in a note so illegible that he could not possibly read it.
We know that nothing echoes like an empty mailbox, but today, unfortunately, the mail carrier brings more catalogs than correspondence. The telephone has replaced the letter almost as completely as the car has replaced the cart. A telephone call is good, but a letter is a gift that can be read and re-read. I have letters in my files sent to me more than 60 years ago, letters from family and friends now deceased who still visit through the letters they wrote.
Letters need not be long. I have saved a letter sent from Michigan to Kansas by three members of a barbershop quartet with which I sang while living in Michigan. The letter is a short one - sent to our first-born son in Kansas. The letter reads: "Dear Charles, Welcome to our world. We have known your father for a long time. You have a lovely mother, though." It is a short letter, but a memorable one!
I remember a friend at seminary who had a framed copy of a short letter sent to him by a college professor. It occupied a prominent place on his desk. It was a letter commending him for the good work he had done at college and encouraging him to keep up the good work through seminary days.
The letter was from a professor he loved, and his word of encouragement gave a lift to my seminary friend every time he sat down at his desk to study.
Correspondence may be simply a card. A card sent to a friend who is hospitalized may be more important to the patient than any shot he or she will receive. Get-well cards have become so humorous that I sometimes think that if we don't get sick we are missing half the fun!
Recently a friend wrote a beautiful note to me in which she said, "A dear friend of my mother writes letters and verses to me. Each one is special. Since the death of my mother last May her notes bring much joy and peace." I thought you might enjoy this verse she sent with her letter:
A letter is the warmest way
To bid a friend the time of day:
A keep-in-touch that brings the smiles
Across the very longest miles.
And what a wealth of strength and hope,
Reminding loved ones that you are
At least in heart not very far.
In no country, state or camp is
The wealth beneath a postage stamp,
For memories that never age
Are written down upon each page.
And though it's nice to telephone,
One of the sweetest pleasures known
Are moments shared in thoughts we send
That can be read and read again.