217. Letters Are Commonplace

Letters are commonplace enough, yet what splendid
things they are! When someone is in a distant
province and one is worried about him, and then a
letter suddenly arrives, one feels as though one
were seeing him face to face. Again, it is a great
comfort to have expressed one's feelings in a
letter even though one knows it cannot yet have
arrived. If letters did not exist, what dark
depressions would come over one! When one has been
worrying about something and wants to tell a
certain person about it, what a relief it is to put
it all down in a letter! Still greater is one's joy
when a reply arrives. At that moment a letter
really seems like an elixir of life.