Today Samara Learned... [Day 9]

that she saves cards and letters from people for a reason.  Because some days are just too frustrating or saddening to go alone.  Reading or re-reading letters remind her of the things that truly define her and of the courage she had forgot she had.  And even hundreds of miles away from people who love her, she can feel close to them through those words.

On letters

Over the weekend, I was organizing papers and files and clearing out a bin for a (long awaited) lager space to keep out notes, cards, and letters.  I didn't have time to re-read as much as I would have liked to, but the snippet here, the postcard there made me so happy.  I'm a spoiled girl, with letters from England, Spain, Germany, New Zealand, and all across the United States. 

 

This morning, one of my favorite bloggers posted "Why We Should Write Letters Again, Please."   This is a conversation my older brother and I have had many times.  They last.  Letters mean more.  [Just see Letters of Note.] The time they take to compose, the tangibility they convey, the distance they close - they mean so much to both parties.

As Fall is now decidedly upon us, and the natural inclination to stay close to the hearth has settled in our hearts, consider "posting" something more memorable than a message or tweet. 

"The proper definition of a man is an animal that writes letters" - Lewis Carroll

"How wonderful it is to be able to write someone a letter! To feel like conveying your thoughts to a person, to sit at your desk and pick up a pen, to put your thoughts into words like this is truly marvelous." - Haruki Murakami

"I have now attained the true art of letter-writing, which we are always told, is to express on paper exactly what one would say to the same person by word of mouth." - Jane Austen

Quotes of Jane (Part I)

Regarding the King Henry VI: "It was in this reign that Joan of Arc lived and made such a row among the English. They should not have burnt her--but they did." - The History of England

"But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are pretty women to deserve them." - Mansfield Park

"A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony, in a moment." - Pride and Prejudice (Oh how well she understood the female mind! haha)

"loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable... her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful..." - Pride and Prejudice

"All I want in a man is someone who rides bravely, dances beautifully, sings with vigor, reads passionately, and whose taste agrees in every point with my own." - Sense and Sensibility

"I think I may boast myself to be, with all possible vanity, the most unlearned and uninformed a female who ever dared to be an authoress." - A sarcastic letter to a chauvinistic friend

"Jane Shore... had a play written about her, but it is a tragedy & therefore not worth reading." - The History of England

"...it requires uncommon steadiness of reason to resist the attraction of being called the most charming girl in the world." - Northanger Abbey

"A large income is the best recipe for happiness I have ever heard of." - Mansfield Park