Who and why wrote letters "far and wide", and Why did they violate the norms of etiquette

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Such a letter looks like some kind of cipher, and indeed, it takes some effort to read it. But the sender did not pursue the goal of confusing the recipient of the correspondence. And you shouldn't blame him for untidiness: the reason why the letter was written crosswise is rather sympathetic, even if it is known that Jane Austen and Charles Darwin once resorted to this method, being perfectly aware of the fact that they are violating some norms of etiquette.

A letter sheet instead of an envelope

If an artist creates a new one on top of one previously painted picture, this is far from an isolated case in the history of painting, so dozens of works of art were discovered - or lost, depending on which side to evaluate the canvas from. The motives that pushed the master to such a decision usually boiled down to the desire to save money. For the same reason, a sheet of writing covered with writing could once serve as a field for new lines - and it is important that the old text, unlike the picture, did not disappear anywhere.

Envelopes were introduced into everyday life by Europeans only at the end of the 19th century, and before that, when sending a letter, they did this: while writing a letter, they left a blank space on a sheet of paper so that it could be folded with the text inward, and the recipient's address was indicated on the outside … Sometimes such a sheet - it was called a postal sheet - was sealed with sealing wax before shipment.

Correspondence then occupied a significant part of the life of the British. It is believed that Jane Austen, for example, wrote over three thousand letters in her life. All this required, of course, a large amount of paper, and besides - payment for the postage. Both were expensive, and then the English correspondents found a solution - to write letters crosswise, or up and down.

Cross letter

Until the middle of the 19th century, mail forwarding fees in England were calculated based on the distance between the sender and the addressee, and also on the number of sheets in the letter. Even the minimum wage accounted for most of the worker's daily wages (and at that time they worked no less than 12 hours a day), or even exceeded it. At the same time, the letter often contained more than one or two sheets, moreover, the paper itself cost a lot. Of course, for families who had a special person who could deliver mail as a domestic servant, the issue of forwarding was solved quite simply, while the rest often resorted to a special method - the letter "criss-cross".

When the page ended, they turned it ninety degrees and continued to write, placing the lines perpendicular to the existing ones. There was a way to save even more on sending - then the page served for the third time: they wrote already diagonally, at an angle of 45 degrees relative to each of the lines.

It was really inconvenient to read such a letter, so the sender could use two different shades of ink. This was also done in the case when one shipment contained two letters to different family members at once - a fairly common practice. For example, a gentleman who left home could address appeals to his mother and sister, on one sheet, but located perpendicularly - such letters are found not only in museums, but also in numerous family archives.

Savings versus etiquette

Changing the color of ink when writing a letter crosswise was also recommended by the etiquette of that time. Strictly speaking, the very practice of such economy was rather condemned and its use was not considered a model of politeness. Lewis Carroll formulated several rules-instructions regarding the "culture of correspondence", and one of them was - do not write over the previously drawn letters.

Nevertheless, similar examples of saving paper can be found by studying the epistolary heritage of the English classics - including the writer Henry James, the poet John Keats, the scientist Charles Darwin. The letter "far and wide" is also mentioned in Jane Austen's novel "Emma", and the writer herself repeatedly resorted to this method of saving when she corresponded with her family members.

Criss-cross lettering began to become a thing of the past with the introduction in 1840 of the "penny mail" system, which established uniform rates for sending mail and made correspondence much more affordable financially. By the end of the 19th century, the practice of writing letters "inside and out" had already become a part of history. Moreover, new - early XX century - books on etiquette for English girls have already categorically prohibited this method of writing letters. There was no great need for this, the prices for office supplies and postal services were already quite low by that time.

Then for a long time were in use postage stamps, by the way, some of them are now worth a fortune.