EXASPERATING.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 230, 28 September 1929, Page 1 (Supplement)

EXASPERATING.

CURIOUS LETTER WRITERS. IRRELEVANT GARRULITY. (By G. EDITH BURTON.) We have all had them, those exasperating letters. Here is an extract or, perhaps, I should say, a sample —of one received the other day. It was from Sydney—a fat one, with a lettercard trailing behind. As, of course, it was shorter, I read the lettercard first. It said, "Put the little flower in a deep glass of water; remove paper first," and that was all. The little flower will be in the letter, I thought. But no; not a sign of it. "Perhaps it is'one of those very tiny, flat ones," said Eight Years, "and p'raps you dropped it out." So we searched very carefully, from the postbox to the house, but not a sign. (It arrived next mail, when all excitement was over. One of those delightful Japanese flowers, with a tiny china pot, as small as a doll's saucer; with imitation grasses, which fluff out in the water, making the pink flower look so very real.) The Missing Enclosure. Then there is the person who writes thus: "I got such a pretty dress-length the other day; remarkably cheap and quite a number of shades to choose from. I am enclosing a pattern in case you would like me to get you one; but write at once, as there is quite a demand for them. There are shades of saxe and mauve left, and also the" grey shade enclosed. You could have it made with a- " And so on, for several pages. ' In fact, the writer does everything for you, but the main thing—the enclosure of the precious pattern. Probably if it had arrived you would have done nothing: but because it is missing, you are positive that it is just the thing you have been pining for. You picture the shade, the way you would have had it made, even the hat you would have worn with it; and you are deeply vexed with Myra. '. Another tiresome correspondent either repeats his news of a previous letter or he assumes he has told you part of an affair that you really know nothing about. Somehow he never seems to get his correspondence on the rails. He starts off: "Just my luck —that section was sold the very day before I got there. But I'm thinking of the one facing the sea, that I was keen on when I. wrote you last. Do you think it is wortli the money ? Let me know by return mail. I know you'll think it, s hard luck about the other one " and so on. You know quite well that he has never in his life written about a section; but it gives you a queer .feeling—a kind of Rip Van Winkle feeling—to have him prattling to you in the dark, as it were. All In the Postscript. A hopeless writer is the one who says: "Dear G., —It is quite time I answered your nice long letter, but really there is no news here. We have had a lot of rain, but I think it was worse last year at this time; yet many people declare that last September was quite a good month. Anyway, the peach blossom is later, I think, this year, and the roads are very cut up here. If it would come a good fine spell they would soon dry up. How are your roads? Jim says if our roads are bad what must yours be? I see they have let a contract for 12 tons of metal; but what good will that be in this weather. They always start messing with roads in wet weather. Tom and Jess and the baby came_ up for the week-end; they seemed all right, but they've had a lot of rain, too, and their roads are awful. They wished to be remembered to you; Jess says she will write soon. She says that as soon as she starts to write someone comes. She hasn't written to her mother for three weeks. Tom has a good many business letters to write, so he does not write often to other people. And yet all his people write so many letters. I often wish that my husband would write oftener to his people." Then another word hypnotises her, and she painfully extends it, with fearful platitudes, for several pages. Finalty she "comes to a close." Huddled in a corner is: "P.S. Joan is engaged—wonderful'diamond ring—going to Honolulu for honeymoon. Have got our car at last. Forgot to say Tom and Jess have sold out." All her news in her P.S. Then we come to the letter-writer who uses very correct thick unlined paper, and writes in a bold flowing hand spaced like this, and you mournfully wonder if it was worth a penny. , • Yes, we all get these exasperating letters; and —many of us write them.