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Letters of note

JA October 31

The letter may be dying but blogs devoted to cataloguing them are truly well and alive – Letters of Note is great little site by Shaun Usher which gathers together ‘correspondence deserving of a wider audience’, including dispatches from Mark Twain, John Keats and Frida Kahlo. Here are a few others of interest:

Dunhuang Bureau of Etiquette Template

This apology for drunken behaviour, dated 856, is based on a template from the Dunhuang Bureau of Etiquette. Guilty dinner guests would copy it out and deliver it to their offended hosts, hopefully none too hungover.

Translation
Yesterday, having drunk too much, I was intoxicated as to pass all bounds; but none of the rude and coarse language I used was uttered in a conscious state. The next morning, after hearing others speak on the subject, I realised what had happened, whereupon I was overwhelmed with confusion and ready to sink into the earth with shame.

From the International Dunhuang Project.

Letter to a Top Scientist

This letter was sent to the scientists at the Woomera Rocket Range in 1957 by a schoolboy named Denis. Apparently, he thought that the boffins just needed a little help to enter Australia in the space race.

Text

TO A TOP SCIENTIST AT Woomera ROCKET RANGE South Australia

URGENT

Diagram:

MY ROCKET SHIP

AUSTRALIAN MARKINGS

Pilot Navigator etc.
Radar ANTENNA
Radio ARIEL
AIR TORPEADOS (GUIDED MISSILES)
4 Rolls Royce JeT ENGINES
Jet can be fired individully

YOU PUT IN OTHER DETAILS

From the National Archives of Australia

Letter from Groucho Marx to T.S. Eliot

What began as mutual fan letters soon became an affectionate and unlikely friendship between Groucho Marx and poet T.S. Eliot. According to the blog, Marx began a previous letter with ‘Dear Tom, If this isn't your first name, I'm in a hell of a fix! But I think I read somewhere that your first name is the same as Tom Gibbons’, a prizefighter who once lived in St. Paul.’ Eliot then replied ‘I cannot recall the name of Tom Gibbons at present, but if he helps you to remember my name that is all right with me’, hence the opening paragraph.

Text

Dear Tom:

Since you are actually an early American, (I don't mean that you are an old piece of furniture, but you are a fugitive from St. Louis), you should have heard of Tom Gibbons. For your edification, Tom Gibbons was a native of St. Paul, Minnesota, which is only a stone's throw from Missouri. That is, if the stone is encased in a missile. Tom was, at one time, the light heavyweight champion of the world, and, although outweighed by twenty pounds by Jack Dempsey, he fought him to a standstill in Shelby, Montana.

The name Tom fits many things. There was once a famous Jewish actor named Thomashevsky. All male cats are named Tom -- unless they have been fixed. In that case they are just neutral and, as the upheaval in Saigon has just proved, there is no place any more for neutrals.

There is an old nursery rhyme that begins "Tom, Tom, the piper's son," etc. The third President of the United States first name was Tom ... in case you've forgotten Jefferson.

So, when I call you Tom, this means you are a mixture of heavyweight prizefighter, a male alley cat and the third President of the United States.

I have just finished my latest opus, "Memoirs of a Mangy Lover". Most of it is autobiographical and very little of it is fiction. I doubt whether it will live through the ages, but if you are in a sexy mood the night you read it, it may stimulate you beyond recognition and rekindle memories that you haven't recalled in years.

Sex, as an industry, is big business in this country, as it is in England. It's something everyone is deeply interested in even if only theoretically. I suppose it's always been this way, but I believe that in the old days it was discussed and practiced in a more surreptitious manner. However, the new school of writers have finally brought the bedroom and the lavatory out into the open for everyone to see. You can blame the whole thing on Havelock Ellis, Krafft-Ebing and Brill, Jung and Freud. (Now there's a trio for you!) Plus, of course, the late Mr. Kinsey who, not satisfied with hearsay, trundled from house to house, sticking his nose in where angels have always feared to tread.

However I would be interested in reading your views on sex, so don't hesitate. Confide in me, Tom. Though admittedly unreliable, I can be trusted with matters as important as that.

My best to you and Mrs. Tom

From the Library of Congress

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