Lettres de cachet

“ As one of its penalties, letter writing has become a lost art. A three-line note or a postal card, or what is worse, a dictation by a stenographer from which the last vestige of communion of friend with friend is completely extinguished, has taken the place of the welcome epistles which our grandmothers and aunts wrote with care, and filled full not only with gossip and family news, but also with instructive comments on events of the day. ”

“ Bothwell, in his turn, was nothing loath, and they leaped at each other like two flames.
It was then that Mary wrote those letters which were afterward discovered in a casket and which were used against her when she was on trial for her life. These so-called Casket Letters, though we have not now the originals, are among the most extraordinary letters ever written. All shame, all hesitation, all innocence, are flung away in them. The writer is so fired with passion that each sentence is like a cry to a lover in the dark. ”

“ No: on my honor I ask for no letter of yours— not a word that has been written by you or to you. That packet contains a stolen letter: a letter written by a woman to a man—a man not her husband—a letter that means disgrace, infamy—
NAPOLEON. A love letter?
LADY (bitter-sweetly) . What else but a love letter could stir up so much hate?
NAPOLEON. Why is it sent to me? To put the husband in my power,– eh?
LADY. No, no: it can be of no use to you: I swear that it will cost you nothing to give it to me. It has been sent to you out of sheer malice—solely to injure the woman who wrote it. ”

“ What was there in these letters? The vilest treason of which a man has ever been the victim. The writer of these letters was one of my intimate friends! And the tone in which they were written!—what passion, what love, certain of being returned! How he spoke of 'keeping the secret!' And all these letters dated at a time when I was married and so happy! How can I tell you what I felt? Imagine the intoxication caused by a mortal poison. I read all those letters every one. Then I put them up again in a packet, retied them with the ribbon, and, replacing them under the lace, relocked the drawer. ”

“ In many of our large post-offices postmasters have baskets placed inside for the reception of letters. These are invariably too small, and it not unfrequently occurs that the aperture through which letters pass gets choked up, the basket being full to its mouth. Any person could from the outside take a handful of letters without any one being aware of it. Honest men, however, making the discovery, notify the clerks of the situation of the letters, but not until it is very natural to suppose some letters may have been stolen. ”

“ It was announced this morning that no more letters from our Corps would be accepted at the Army Post Office. This is the most certain sign we have had that an attack is going to be pulled off. Letters home are a frequent source of leakage of information. When men know that they are writing what may prove to be their last message to their mothers, wives, sweethearts, it is almost impossible for them to keep that knowledge to themselves. ”

“ It was quite by accident that he found the diary. Reading it, to learn if it was his duty, as a friend who knew its probable secrets, to destroy it, he thus had found out about the lawyer’s trickery. But instead of writing and telling the granddaughter who he was and why she ought to be in the big house when the will was read, he worded his letter so crazy-like, with such queer reference to the dead man’s diary, that the letter frightened her. ”

“ It is a possible cry from any human being to another. Then as to the ring and the photograph, we have no proof that he put them in the envelope. They may have been found on him and put into the envelope by the same hand that addressed it. I quite grant you that those few words are extraordinary, but they can be explained. But even if it were obvious that they were intended for somebody else, you cannot deduce from that, that another letter, intended for Lady Rose and containing a will, was sent elsewhere. ”

“ It happened to be the only letter the early post had brought, and he glanced across the table at his wife, who had come down before him and had probably laid the envelope on his plate. She was not the woman to ask awkward questions, but he felt the conjecture of her glance, and he was debating whether to affect surprise at the receipt of the letter, or to pass it off as a business communication that had strayed to his house, when a check fell from the envelope. It was the royalty on the first edition of the letters. His first feeling was one of simple satisfaction. ”

“ For a man to forget where the postage stamps are kept, or the position in the room of the letter files, was, in itself, a proof that something very strange had suddenly come over him, the more so in the case of one who was almost aggressively proud of his memory. ”

“ Even when surrounded by all the incidents of home life, the postman is ever a welcome visitor; but in the midst of such a dreary captivity as these men were undergoing, a letter from home was like a message from heaven.
Their correspondence had, however, its sad as well as its cheerful aspect. The prisoners were restricted in writing their letters to six lines, by an arbitrary order from Major Turner, and much ingenuity was exercised in the effort to crowd into these six lines the thousand and one messages which many of the writers desired to send to mothers, wives, sisters and sweethearts. ”

“ And yet when she came out, with two letters in her hand, one in a large and one in a small envelope, and meeting my eye hastily drew them under her shawl, I found myself wondering what was in her letters and who she could be, that the casual glance of a stranger should unconsciously move her to an action so suspicious. ”

“ I am continually exchanging letters with four brothers, a sister, several cousins, and many friends, besides a quantity of casual correspondence{515} with people often unknown to me. The necessity of sacrificing so much of my time to letter-writing is such a burden to me that, from the bottom of my heart, I curse all the postal arrangements in the world. The post often causes me sad moments, but it also brings me the greatest joy. One person plays the chief part in the story of the last ten years of my life: she is my good genius ”

“ M. Cochrane.
I took the anonymous letter from my pocket, spread it out on the window ledge, and laid the latest missive beside it. A single glance afforded irrefutable proof that the handwriting was the same. The cramped and distorted letters were such as a man would write with his left hand by painful effort. In the face of such evidence, my suspicions of the oiler were perforce swept away ”

“ I began, "I received in my morning mail a letter, the delicate penmanship of which at once attracted my attention and awakened my curiosity. Turning to the signature, I read the name of a young lady friend of mine, and, somewhat startled at the thought that this was the first time I had ever seen the handwriting of one I knew so well, I perused the letter with an interest that presently became painful as I realized the tenor of its contents. ”

“ It is astonishing how many letters go out every day unsigned, lacking enclosures, carrying the wrong addresses, bearing insufficient postage, and showing other evidences of carelessness and thoughtlessness. ”

“ I will refrain from asserting that a daily correspondence, maintained with a large variety of persons—people who may not perhaps be scientific, but who understand whether a letter is well written or ridiculous—may be capable of securing a large part of the regard, or of occasioning a large part of the contempt, bestowed on nobles. I make no mention of the rich man in Signor Mercier's comedy of Indigence, who found it impossible to write a letter of the utmost importance because his secretary was away from home. ”

“ I found myself in daily and hourly receipt of sere and yellow fragments, originally torn from some dead and gone newspaper, creased and seamed from long folding in wallet or pocket-book. Need I say that most of them were of an emotional or didactic nature; need I add any criticism of these homely souvenirs, often discoloured by the morning coffee, the evening tobacco, or, Heaven knows! perhaps blotted by too easy tears! Enough that I knew now what had become of those original but never re-copied verses which filled the 'Poet's Corner' of every country newspaper on the coast. ”

“ The letters were as happy as letters could be—at least those early letters were. There was in them a vivid and intense sense of the present time, which seemed so strong and full, as if it could never pass away, and as if the warm, living hearts that so expressed themselves could never die, and be as nothing to the sunny earth. I should have felt less melancholy, I believe, if the letters had been more so. I saw the tears stealing down the well-worn furrows of Miss Matty's cheeks, and her spectacles often wanted wiping. ”

“ Joy and sorrow as yet have no voice; vice and crime are yet concealed, running, like subterranean streams, from the mind which originated, to the mind which is to receive their influence. The mail bag is as great a leveller as the grave, and it is only by the superscription in either case, that one occupant can be distinguished from the other. ”

“ Do not send a blurred, blotted, slovenly note to any one; it will remain to call up a certain prejudice against you in the mind of the recipient. The fashion is not now, as it once was, imperative that a margin be left around the edge of the paper. People now write all over the paper, and thus abolish a certain elegance which the old letters undoubtedly possessed. But postage is a consideration, and all we can ask of the youthful letter-writers is that they will not cross their letters. Plaid letters are the horror of all people who have not the eyes of a hawk. ”

“ In other words, these packages were what are called decoy letters,—a species of device for entrapping the dishonest, which will always be effectual, and whose detective power the shrewdest rogue is unable to withstand. The utmost sagacity will never enable one to distinguish between a decoy-letter and a genuine one, so that the only way of securing safety from these missives is to let all letters alone. ”

“ She felt an intense longing to prolong, to perpetuate, the momentary exaltation of her spirit. If only life could end now—end on this tragic yet sweet vision of lost possibilities, which gave her a sense of kinship with all the loving and foregoing in the world!
She reached out suddenly and, drawing the cheque from her writing-desk, enclosed it in an envelope which she addressed to her bank. She then wrote out a cheque for Trenor, and placing it, without an accompanying word, in an envelope inscribed with his name, laid the two letters side by side on her desk. ”

“ I have made my will with provision for this eventuality, and I hope you will consent to accept the small remembrance addressed to you, and my sincere thanks for the way in which you joined your fortunes to mine. The fate which has come upon me is desperate and terrible beyond the remotest dreams of man; but this fate you have a right to know—if you please. If you look in the left-hand drawer of my dressing-table, you will find the key of the escritoire, properly labelled. In the well of the escritoire is a large envelope sealed and addressed to your name. ”

“ We all have these instincts at times: the contents of an unopened letter or parcel seem endowed with a voice; who has not guessed the fateful news in a telegram before he has broken open the envelope, even as Leavesley guessed the contents of the letter in his hand? ”

“ It is curious to note the deterioration in the artistic quality of the letters as the period of their production approaches our own, when people dash off their correspondence rapidly and incoherently, instead of bestowing upon it the artifice and care which distinguished the epistolarians of an elder date, whose letters, fastidiously written, faithfully read, and jealously kept and shown about in favored circles, supplied the place of newspapers. ”

“ Jacques passed the letter to the Count. The handwriting was Bertha’s and it was addressed to Mr. De Vinne.
“You may get up,” repeated the Count. “Give me that key. I will take charge of the letter and see that it is delivered when the young gentleman comes for it. I don’t believe a word you have told me except that you had the letter. Thieves always leave some loophole to crawl through.” ”

“ Not so; they are mail-bags. See how furiously one is thrown down: it is seized upon as if a victim to be sacrificed. “Brass lock,” yells one. “Iron,” screams another. Brass or iron, they are quickly unlocked, and in an instant their contents are scattered like chaff, and away they go to the four quarters of the globe as fast as busy hands, wind, tide, and steam can take them.
No fort—not even Sumter, Darling, or the defences of Vicksburg—ever presented a more busy scene of life and death than does the post-office on the opening of mail-bags: it may indeed be compared to “life and death;” ”

“ For although many hearts are made glad by these silent messengers, yet in every day's mail there is enough of sadness and misery, lying torpid like serpents, until warmed into venomous life by a glance of the eye, to cast a gloom over the spirits of any one who should know it all ”