Remember handwritten letters? Pretty much the only handwritten missives anyone gets today are birthday cards. But once upon a time, pen and paper were at technology’s bleeding edge. Together they created letters.

And a good letter is worth reading and re-reading.

Do you think more when you put pen to paper, wonder about its permanency and how that letter can be passed from hand to hand for judgement?

You can write and send an email quickly; or publish a tweet that if phrased badly leads to public humilation and a frenzied attack on your brain. You can get it right and see your words forwarded. But no-one wants to re-read them a day or a week later, never mind in a year or decades into the future. No-one has written the Great American Tweet.

But a letter can endure. You can touch and fold the paper, store the note in a box, screw it up, or tie it with ribbon. Everything about the letter has the power to speak and trigger a physical reaction.

Writing a good letter takes time.

In his 1876 book How To Write Letters, J. Willis Westlake, a professor at the State Normal School in Millersville, Pennsylvania, tutored us on the skill of writing a good letter:

A letter should be regarded not merely as a medium for the communication of intelligence, but also as a work of art. As beauty of words, tone, and manner adds a charm to speech, so elegance of materials, writing, and general appearance, enhances the pleasure bestowed by a letter… Invention is the action of the mind that precedes writing. In all kinds of composition, there are two things necessary: first, to have something to say; second, to say it. Invention is finding something to say. It is the most difficult part of composition, as it is a purely intellectual process, requiring originality, talent, judgment, and information; while expression is to some extent a matter of mechanical detail, and subject to rules that can be easily understood and applied. A person can write out in a few weeks or months a work the invention of which requires the thought and labor of many years. Yet both parts of composition are equally essential. It is certainly a noble thing to have great thoughts, but without the power of expressing them the finest sentiments are unavailable.

The Smithsonian’s archive of Illustrated Letters shows not only how letters endure but also how they offer an outlet for creativity, giving space for art, asides, random thoughts, after thoughts and doodles. The letters are from the 19th century to the late 1980’s. Graphologists who study mood and character through handwriting should enjoy these. The rest of us can try to work out what the words actually say.

The letter should be a little more formal than the dialogue, since the latter imitates improvised conversation, while the former is written and sent as a kind of gift. . . . The letter should be strong in characterization. Everyone writes a letter in the virtual image of his own soul. In every other form of speech it is possible to see the writer’s character, but in none so clearly as in the letter – Demetrius