Because it’s my blog and I can write what I like, and we’re talking about letters, physical or virtual, here’s my favorite bit about what letters mean to the world (part of a poem by Charles W. Eliot, former president of Harvard University, which is also inscribed on the frontispiece of the US Postal Service Museum in Washington, DC.)

Messenger of Sympathy and Love;
Servant of Parted Friends;
Consoler of the Lonely;
Bond of the Scattered Family;
Enlarger of the Common Life. (...)

Positively, lovely!