A correspondent chides me for not answering his letter, which was an
invitation to evaluate his novel, 644 pages in length. I'm a poor
correspondent, it's true. I store letters in boxes by year and am now
working my way through the 1991s. In his book _The World of the
Shining Prince_, about the _Tale of Genji_ and the Japanese court a
thousand years ago, Ivan Morris describes skill in the art of
correspondence as a determinant of social reputation:
First it was necessary to choose paper of the proper thickness,
size, design, and colour to suit the emotional mood that one wished
to suggest, as well as the season of the year and even the weather
of the particular day. The calligraphy, of course, was at
least as important as the actual message, and often the writer had
to make numerous drafts with different brushes before producing
the precise effect he wished. The nucleus of the text was usually a
thirty-one syllable poem whose central image was some aspect of
nature that delicately symbolized the occasion. Having finished his
letter, the writer would carefully fold it in one of the accepted
styles. The next step was to select the proper branch or spray
of blossom to which the letter must be attached. This depended on
the dominant mood of the letter and on the imagery of the poem. It
was also correlated with the colour of the paper: blue paper
for a willow twig, green for oak, crimson for maple . . .
So as you see, it all takes time.
Document URL:
http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/writing-as-thing.html
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modified: Friday, 30-Aug-1996 23:03:37 EDT