Against Snail Mail

In the days of pen and ink Robert Louis Stevenson and Vincent Van Gogh and a few others wrote letters that were worth holding onto and even- eventually- publishing between hard covers- but most of us didn't. Most of us wrote letters that were pedestrian, laboured, dutiful,  guarded and no more substantial than today's texts and emails. I've been sorting through the correspondence of the ages that has piled up in bureaux in this house and it makes me happy we no longer use snail mail. It takes much less resolve  to wipe an email than it does to throw away a handwritten letter and seems much less like slapping the sender in the face...