My Unposted Correspondence

A Study Showing that Second Thoughts Are Generally but a Part of Cowardice

STEPHEN LEACOCK

IT is an old adage that second thoughts are best. This is especially true when second thoughts are fortified by the inertia of a lazy disposition, averse to trouble.

Like many other people, I find myself constantly impelled to write letters upon sudden impulse, or at least to frame them in my mind. And whether written or only "framed"—a much more agreeable process— somehow they never go.

These letters are addressed, for example, to the directors of theaters to tell them that their place is a fire trap and that I for one never propose to enter it again and that therefore such poor profit as they are able to make must henceforth be made without one. But, on second thoughts—after all what if the place is a fire trap, why bother? Let the other people bum. And anyway I rather think they are to have a musical revue there the week after next which I might like to see. Better take a chance.

Another set of letters are framed to the Immigration Authorities at the United States to tell them that I cannot consent to this everlasting questioning at the border. If the thing persists, I tell them frankly, I must stop coming and going into their country. Indeed, I find that this is the general view of people, of both nations, who come and go across the Canadian border. 1 have listened to conversations in the smoking end of the Pullman car which would make the president shake in his shoes. Once or twice I have almost written and sent this letter: Nothing stopped me except the fear that they might take me at my word and shut me out.

BUT at other times the letters are not only "framed" but all written and signed, and only held back through the momentary difficulty of finding an envelope.

Witness this example:

Letter of Protest to the Light Heat and Power Company, of My Home City

Sirs:

Your account for $41.85 just received this morning convinces me that you are a pack of robbers. This bill which professes to represent an unpaid account for three months is incorrect. I paid you before. I know I did. The mere fact that 1 have got no receipt or anything of that sort is neither here nor there. I know I paid you because 1 have a distinct feeling that I have paid you.

This is a feeling which you ought to respect. My wife also remembers distinctly that she paid your collection man, or any rate a collection man, at the door. And, anyway, look at the account itself. It is absolutely preposterous; six dollars for cooking gas in one month! It can't be. We live plainly and, by Heaven, you couldn't use six dollars worth of heat on all that we eat in a month if you tried. Then look at this charge for electric lighting. What is all this stuff about Kilowatts? I never had any Kilowatts from you. And you have charged me apparently for thousands of them. My strong conviction is that that man of yours who reads the meter is a hired scoundrel.

In any case let me tell you this quite firmly. I will not pay this bill. If need be, 1 will go to jail for it for ten years. But I won't pay. Remember also that you cannot tyrannize over me as easily as you think. I have powerful friends. I know the teller in one of our biggest banks, and the assistant secretary of the Street Railway and a friend of mine knows the mayor quite intimately and calls him Charlie. You may find that if you lay a hand on me you are up against a body of public opinion that will shipwreck your company.

Yours savagely,

BY the time this letter has been written and my wife has made a copy of it (so that when legal proceedings begin we can read it out to the whole court) it is dinner time and too late to bother to post the letter, in addition to which there don't seem to be any envelopes in the whole blasted house. After dinner I forget about it and next morning when I see the letter lying on my table I begin to have doubts about the entire thing. After all, what's the good of a lot of fuss? The light company are scoundrels, but the way to deal with scoundrels is to be broad minded. Furthermore, are they scoundrels? I'm not so sure on reflection, that that collector was their's after all: I seem to remember that he was collecting for the home for the blind. And that big charge for the gas might be connected in a way with our having left the cooking stove burning all night once or twice by accident. And after all I have no receipts. Oh, pshaw! let the thing go. The company, if they only knew it, have had a mighty narrow escape. After this I will keep receipts, check up the meter reading myself, lie in wait for them, and then when they least think of it, overwhelm them with an action for criminal conspiracy. But meanwhile, let it go. Here is the letter which I actually posted:

The Light Heat and Power Company Dear Sirs:

Enclosed, with apologies, my check for $41-85.

Very sincerely,

I suppose there are people in the company's office who open letters like that every month without realizing the wealth of invective that lie behind them.

Let me turn to a similar example:

Letter to the Head Office of the Pullman Company in Regard to the Loss of My Rubbers

Here is a letter which speaks for itself. I have written it at least twenty times. So has everybody. But I have never yet posted it. Nevertheless let the Pullman Company be careful. The letter runs thus—

Dear Sirs:

I write to the Head Office of your Company because I have failed to get plain simple justice from any of your hired officials. Last week I left my rubbers in one of your cars. The name of the car, I regret to say, I cannot remember: but it was either Belgravia, or Ashdown, or some name of that sort. The names of all your cars, I may say, sound alike to me; and anyway you cannot expect me to remember them. Very good. I left my rubbers in this car. I want them back. It is not the value of the rubbers that I care about—

(This is a little touch of rhetoric that always goes into letters of this sort; What I really mean is that it's not the value of them, but the price of them.) I—. The thing concerned is a matter of general principle; and when you hit me on a general principle you hit me where I live.

It will not be at all difficult for you to locate my rubbers as they were left on the car between New York and Boston one day early last week. Up to the present time I have been unable to get any satisfaction whatever from your officials. I have noticed also in the course of my investigations that your district superintendent in New York is wearing rubbers that are either mine or somebody's. May I add, in conclusion, that if I do not receive prompt satisfaction in this matter, I shall refer it to the federal government of the United States?

I am, sirs, yours, sirs,

etc., etc.

PLEASE note the very firm and decisive ending of this letter to the Pullman Company. I am sure that, had it been sent, they would have been compelled to take action. It was only prevented from being sent by my finding my rubbers under the hall table.

Another impulse from which my unposted correspondence often springs is an access of sudden philanthropy. Every time I hear that ten thousand Chinese have been drowned in a flood of the Honng-PIo River I dash off a letter with a check in it for fifty dollars and the signature Friend of China. But before it is posted I recall the fact that after all there are a terrible lot of Chinamen in the world (four billion is it? or is that the issue of German marks per day?). Anyway, there are so many that if they don't get drowned, what are they to do? Better wait for the next flood. So the letter is never sent.

In the same way I sent—or nearly sent—a letter to the President of Chile, to square him up for his earthquake; a letter to General Goethals with $5.00 for him to buy coal with for the people of Saratoga Springs (only next day it turned warmer where I was); and a letter to the Archaeological Society of America enclosing fifty cents that I have owed them for five years.

But second thoughts dull the edge of philanthropy every time. Indeed, sometimes the current of good deeds becomes deflected from its channel in the very process of giving. As witness this letter of a type that I am sure is quite familiar:

Sudden Access of Philanthropy After Hearing a Missionary Appeal

The Reverend John Jungletalk Dear Sir:

Enclosed please find my check for a hundred dollars ($100.00)—one hundred dollars."

(I like to repeat the sum in such cases as this: let it soak right into him.)

You do not know me—

Continued on page 100

Continued from page 50

(What I imply here is that this is his loss: That philanthropists like me are as rare as they are modest)—but I listened, sir, this morning to your sermon on behalf of the Tabloid Negroes of Tanganyika. I do not quite grasp where these negroes live, but your account of their condition has touched me to the quick. I am immensely moved by that story of yours about the old negro woman who wanted to hear a gramaphone before she died or to die after hearing a gramaphone (I forget for the moment which), These people you told us of are in a deplorable condition. They are without bibles, have no books, no soap, no hot water—I think you said hot water—in fact they are in a bad way. And on top of all this t gather that unscrupulous traders have come into the country and are selling rum and whiskey to the natives for a few cents a bottle. This is terrible, In fact, sir, I find that as I write this letter I am inclined instead of sending you the hundred dollars to offer the higher sacrifice of personal service. I gather that you are to sail in a few weeks' time, going from here to Southampton and thence by steamer to wherever it is that the Tabloid negroes live. I am more than half inclined to come along. If you can collect enough money for the two of us I shall be very glad to do so. Meantime I shall hold back the check of which I spoke.

Very sincerely in the spirit,

P.S. That wiskey you spoke of—is Scotch or just Canadian rye?