FAMILY LETTER WRITING.

Thames Star, Volume IIII, Issue 1701, 16 June 1874, Page 2

FAMILY LETTER WRITING.

- The Family Letter.^ written on^Sundays. The reason that day is "selected if not alone because of the leisure ft presents.' The hour-being selected for inditing the letter,' the first" thing it to] find the paper. There is" alwayg a drawer in every well-regulated family for Iceeping such things. It is either in the table or stand; r, Rerr the writin&paper^f nd;odd screws, and fiddtarrtrings, and "broken locks, and fish lines, and grocery receipts are kept. There may T>e other things, but if there he will see' them. The sheet of paper is finally found, the fly., stains neatly" scraped of£ and the search, com* mences for the ink and pen, Tfrefiwmer is invariably "found" on the^"mantleT"next "the'clock, and is immediately la&oif the table convrnient to the perspiring\.aan,» 'who sarcastically inquires if ti&i&ffcr is to be written to-day or next Sunday. ° This'inspires the wife with*n«#?eealin the search. She "goes' over the drawers again because she knows he' wouldn't set anything if, it was right., under, fcis iose, butt the pen' is not there.', After she has done this she" starts uji andC'pnttj soon returns with' the pen, and" Hires it to the sink to .wash the grease 'fiom it, but does not succeed in^quite effacing the delicate scents of bergamot. This leads him to' observe that anybody that takes a penholder to lift hair grease from a bottle is too pure and innocent,for this world. Everything now in" readiness, good humour restored,- the wife takes a seat opposite, with her elbows'on the table, and, her chin in her hand«, and assumes an expression of countenance that is mysteriously- calculated itp. both encourage and depress the writer; and he grasps the pen tightly, betweeprtiis fingers and stares at the paper with an intensity that is entirely unnecessary. The date line, starts.offgibly, and then, suddenly ceases as it reaches the date itself. He put* the holder in his mouth, and immediately »j>it»'it cut again,; malting up a ■ face that is*no wise surgcestive'of bergamot, and pettishly asks, her if site-knows the day of the month. Of coursjt she does-, It .is the J.3th-rror it ,is the—but no—it must be. She hesitates, stares at him, wavers, and is lost. She doesn't' know whether - it is the 13tnTor.lSth^but the almanack will .tell,, and -she at once starts to hunt it up. This'occasions a delay of some 15 minutes, ~during~which he makes 95 passes at one fly. The date having been satisfactorily settled upon, and the things which rolled t)ver the floor as*the stand drawer and contents unexpectedly-fell out having r been restored to their pace, the date line is completed, and " Dear' Mother" started The pen is a hpme pen, of bashful mould) and whenever it starts a line, it half-a-dozen passes to make it give down* All home pens do this. ' And all home sheets of-paper have weak spots which the ink refuses to cross, thus creating, some remarkable divisions of words and considerable confusion 1 among sentences. Some of .these spots are 2in. in diameter and anybody in the nexc room can" tell the moment the writer comes to them just as welt as.if he was Jookingcover his shoulder. When the letter is completed which generally "occurs at the end of the fifth hour from the ..commencement, it. is carefully read over and supplied with absent words, and'then gone over again and artistically. ..touched up with _x the''pen at the bare places. it is " folded up ready for the envelope,-and the discovery is made that there is no envelope in the house, and the letter is tucked in behind the clock until the want is supplied.—Danbury News..