Are we about to lose forever the 楽しみ of a handwritten letter?

By Glenys Roberts for the Daily Mail

Published: 18:40 BST, 28 March 2012 | Updated: 21:34 BST, 28 March 2012

より小数の Christmas and birthday cards in favour of the electronic 肉親，親類d ? the 調印するs are here already. The postman hardly ever comes to call and when he does he usually 減少（する）s someone else’s mail into my box, and 地雷 推定では into theirs.??

What on earth are 王室の Mail thinking by 準備するing to 告発（する），告訴（する）／料金 whatever they like to 配達する a first class letter? Will that make the service any better,? or will it just mean that pretty soon there will be no need for a service at all because no one will be able to afford to use it?

定価つきの out: The 王室の Mail is to 増加する the price of a first class stamp to 60p

And yet receiving a handwritten letter is still one of the 広大な／多数の／重要な 楽しみs in life - and all the more so for its 増加するing rarity. A 本人自身で written? missive hardly ever goes straight in the 貯蔵所 like all the other unsolicited mail that flops の上に the doormat. In fact I find it やめる impossible to chuck one away,? even if it is from someone with whom I have long lost 接触する.??

I still keep the fat, unopened but fountain-pen written envelopes from someone with whom I once had a big 落ちるing out. I didn’t want to read his excuses at the time, I don’t want to read them now, but one day perhaps I will? enjoy savouring his justifications and coming to 条件 after? the passage of time with who was 権利 and who was wrong.

As for letters from people who are no longer with us, they become more precious with every passing day. I still fish out on a 正規の／正選手 basis one little 公式文書，認める sent to me by my Dad when I could barely read. It was 十分な of news and written when he was in the RAF and to make it easier for me all the letters were in 資本／首都s and it was illustrated with little pictures of aeroplanes. These days it is tucked away in an old (大打撃を与えるd vellum 令状ing paper) box with all the family photos. I have to be ますます careful when I 広げる it because the paper is yellowing and it is beginning to 涙／ほころび at the creases. But that makes it even more precious, 特に as it is not so much a family heirloom as a piece of history, now that letter 令状ing is an almost forgotten art.?

Times gone by: Receiving a personal letter is still one of life's little 楽しみs

For what will 未来 世代s be able to hoard away to remind them of people? long gone or those 消えるd days of childhood. Even the photos we take these days ar e mostly 数字表示式の and rarely printed out. And will tomorrow’s 法廷，裁判所ing couples ever know the joy of receiving a love letter?? Of spotting the familiar 令状ing on the mat, of retrieving it before anyone else can see it and hiding the envelope away in secret until there is enough time to open it, pore over it, devour it and 高く評価する／（相場などが）上がる, or さもなければ, every nuance of the writer’s chosen words.

You can tell more about a person’s character and 意向s in one page of handwritten prose than from any 量 of time spent knocking 支援する ワイン together while watching a rented DVD. As for a love email, it is just not the same thing at all. Even if you print it out and put it under your pillow, it won’t have any of the vibrations or intimacy of the real 手渡す-made thing.?

Then there is the time spent calculating a suitable 返答. These days we bat off electronic answers without a second thought and then often spend time 支払う／賃金ing the consequences. In the days when the postman was our first link with those far away, it was important to get one’s reply to a love letter 正確に／まさに 権利 ? not to snap out an answer too? soon or take too long thinking what to say.

Remember the days when we thought of all the 関わりあい／含蓄s of our words before we put pen to paper? We scribbled and doodled and wrote and rewrote till there was a 塚 of discarded paper in the waste paper basket. Then, having let surface our most intimate thoughts in 許容できる form, we 圧力（をかける）d our lips to the piece of paper 含む／封じ込めるing them, 倍のd it lovingly into an envelope and stuck the stamp on at a particular angle to give it a particular meaning. We dangled the finished letter in the box, lost our 神経 and quickly retrieved it? before finally letting go. We then spent an agonising few days imagining how the words were received at the other end and wondering whether the 反対する of our affection would ever 令状 again.

Are all these frissons to be consigned to the dustbin and never experienced by a new 世代? Are we all to be 減ずるd to 伝えるing our most intimate thoughts impersonally on line and wiping them for ever by mistake? And what about the older 世代 who 港／避難所’t 調印するd up to the new 科学（工学）技術 because they don’t understand it or can’t afford it or 簡単に because they don’t want to? Those people with time on their 手渡すs, who don’t work an d don’t earn, and often live on their own but want to compare how they are doing with their friends from way 支援する when. Are they to be 禁じるd from communicating with each other ever again if they live その上の away than the next street because they can’t afford the ever 増加するing price of a stamp??

明らかにする／漏らすing: You can tell more about a person's character in one page of handwritten prose than you often can from 存在 in their company

Perhaps the 増加するd expense will serve to make a letter an even more precious 商品／必需品, as it was when the 地位，任命する first （機の）カム in, and those that we do receive will have the 追加するd value of rarity. Perhaps we will even get out and 手渡す 配達する our choicest words - or rather put them in the 手渡すs of a go-between as in the old days because it would never do to get caught popping them through the letterbox of the loved one.

A go-between, what is that? That used to be the 役割 of the 地位，任命する Office.