What new and wonderful words appear in your lexicon when you write a letter? Do you find yourself gleefully adding postscript after postscript to your latest manifesto and notice that you have begun using the word ‘quite’ or ‘marvelously’ or even ‘indubitably’ and realize - by jove, something is amuck here? I certainly do.
Perhaps it is the formal structure of the letter that brings out such an antiquated sensibility to speech. With painful accuracy, you eke out the name and address of your latest literary victim so as not to have your ramblings go astray. You submit to the formalities of hello, how are you, this is my answer to your question now please answer mine, sincerely, your friend. Signed, sealed and hopefully, delivered. And during this illustrious process, you start to slip into a speech pattern that is alien to your natural tongue.
Or perhaps it has more to do with the immortal yet increasingly rare act of letter-writing itself. The ceremony of sitting down at a table, pen in hand, resolved to write something worthy of being read by another person - not to mention, worthy of being shipped across time and space - this feels substantial, so maybe one feels one has to be substantial oneself.
Or maybe that’s just me. When I plonk myself down to write a letter to my friends, I feel so much more purposeful and so much more playful than I often remember to be in real life. It feels like a space where I am able to let all my little insights out. In my letters I am mysterious. In my letters I am romancing myself and the world. I flirt with language like a devilish dictionary. I engage in verbal sparring with myself.
The reality is, as a dedicated PG Wodehouse and Groucho Marx fan, there is no escaping a certain Victorian-slash-Vaudevillian tone when it comes my letters. But it’s my story and baby, this is my genre. However, I often wonder if this is an affliction shared by others my age - if there are others overflowing with this specific literary flavour. Please, write me a letter and egad, let me know.