Letter Writing IS ON THE CRITICAL LIST.

• Author: Sauter, Jack

"... Those who still buy--and use--stationery, envelopes, and stamps may be a dying breed."

In these days of e-mail and faxes, envelopes that carry personal messages appear to be something from another age, like wind-up phonographs or manually focused cameras. While I still get plenty of mail, almost all of it is the wrong kind. Half contains pleas for money; the other half offers me untold wealth if I return the enclosed form (along with my magazine subscription order). I have this crazy dream that some day I actually will win all that money, enabling me to set up a trust fund for my bulk mail to be addressed to. In that way, the whole thing will balance out and I'll be left with the real letters I so yearn for.

It wasn't always that way, for letters have been part of written history since the days of the Holy Scriptures. One of my earliest Bible readings concerned a letter from St. Paul to the Romans. I remember wondering who delivered that one.

Later, postal subsidies developed and supported early transatlantic shipping, both sail and steam. Railroads and airlines got the same treatment, so the swift handling of mail had a tremendous impact on transportation technology. In the British merchant marine, their great ocean liners were identified not with the symbol "S.S." (for steamship), but with the designation "R.M.S." (for Royal Mail Ship). Among others, this nautical prefix described the Titanic, Mauretania, and the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth.

It was in literature and the arts, though, that correspondence left the most permanent mark. Were it not for letters, how little we would know of the blood and sweat that made up the creation of books, plays, operas, and symphonies, the bedrock of Western civilization. Messages between composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his wife Constanza, composer Giuseppe Verdi and his publisher, and composer Giacomo Puccini and conductor Arturo Toscanini are but a few examples of how their writing shed light on their creative process. This love of correspondence carried over into their musical output. Could anyone imagine opera bereft of its "letter scenes"? What could replace those heartbreaking arias of Tatiana and Violetta or the comic intrigue letters in "The Marriage of Figaro" and "The Barber of Seville"?

In their writings, many historical figures are revealed as worried parents, affectionate husbands and wives (or lovers), and doubting leaders--flesh-and-blood individuals torn with the consuming and torturing weaknesses of humanity. Letters revealed the rich tapestry of daily life in centuries past, often today's sole connecting link to what otherwise truly would be a Dark Age. (Ironically, the diminishment of written notes has made the papers of more recent U.S. presidents vastly more valuable than those from the 19th century.)

Letters weren't the exclusive possession of the rich and famous. Anyone who viewed the television series "The Civil War" couldn't help but be impressed with the natural style and honest emotion expressed by often poorly educated soldiers on both sides. Their simple words, spoken over the faded black-and-white still photographs, recalled those terrible times far more effectively than any TV docudrama.

In the modern era, movies have given us "A Letter to Three Wives," "The Little Shop Around the Corner," "Address Unknown," and "The Letter," to name but a few. It is a rare magazine or newspaper that doesn't feature a "Letters to the Editor" or a personal advice column like "Dear Abby." As for books, The Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Sandor Ferencizi is a collection of 483 out of 1,236 letters between these two doctors over a 25-year period. Now that's letter writing! Moreover, these weren't two retired gentlemen with time on their hands. Far from it; they arguably were among the busiest scientists who ever lived.

Today, at a time when letter writing nearly has disappeared, I'm very lucky to have correspondents, foreign and domestic. We exchange long letters and spill our hearts out to each other in a manner it is likely we never would do face to face.

When I tell someone about this, they laugh and say, "Letters? Why bother? The phone is so much easier." They miss the whole point, however. Letter writers are shaping and sharing their most intimate thoughts. On the phone, there is no time to compose and re-edit one's lines. They are gone in an instant, lost forever.

Letters have a wondrous magic and enhancement...