ibed the Letter as that kind of communication of thought or fact to
another person which most immediately succeeds the oral, and supplies
the claims of absence. You want to tell somebody something; but he or
she is not, as they used to say "by," or perhaps there are circumstances
(and circum_standers_) which or who make speech undesirable; so you
"write." At first no doubt, you used signs or symbols like the feather
with which Wildrake let Cromwell's advent be known in _Woodstock_--a
most ingenious device for which, by the way, the recipients were scantly
grateful. But when reading and writing came by nature, you availed
yourself of these Nature's gifts, not always, it is to be feared,
regarding the interconnection of the two sufficiently. There is probably
more than one person living who has received a reply beginning "Dear
So-and-So, Thanks for your interesting and _partially legible_ epistle,"
or words to that effect. But that is a part of the matter which lies
outside our range.

On the probable general fact, however, some observations may be less
frivolously based. If this were a sentimental age, as some ages in the
past have been, one might assume that, as the first portrait is supposed
to have been a silhouette of the present beloved, drawn on her shadow
with a charcoaled stick, so the same, or another implement may have
served (on what substitute for paper anybody pleases) to communicate
with her when absent. But the silliness of this age--though far be it
from us to dispute its possession of so prevailing a quality--does not
take the form--at least _this_ form--of sentiment.

[Sidenote: THE BEGINNINGS]

There is, moreover, nothing silly or sentimental, though of course there
is something that may be controverted, in saying that except for purely
"business" purposes (which are as such alien from Art and have nothing
to do with any but a part, and a rather sophisticated part, of Nature)
the less the letter-writer forgets that he is merely substituting pen
for tongue the better. Of course, the instruments and the circumstances
being different, the methods and canons of the proceedings will be
different too. In the letter there is no interlocutor; and there is no
possibility of what we may call accompanying it with personal
illustrations[1] and demonstrations, if necessary or agreeable. But
still it may be laid down, with some confidence, that the more the
spoken word is heard in a letter the better, and the less