Page:When You Write a Letter (1922).pdf/95

 tion both in writing and in oral discourse involves an interchange of thoughts. Some people have the erroneous idea that it is sufficient if one person does all the talking while the other simply listens, but this is not conversation, it is only monologue.

A real and satisfying reply to a friendly letter requires that all the questions be answered in some way or another, we seldom ask them simply to fill space; that there be a sympathetic response to suggestions, and an understanding and an appreciation of the tone and spirit in which the first letter was written. Otherwise there is no incentive or inspiration to continue the correspondence. "Have you read 'Main Street'?" I ask when I am writing Cornish, "and what do you think of it? It seems to me to have eliminated from the lives of its characters everything that is sweet and kindly and wholesome. It is true in every detail and yet false in that it omits so much that is also quite as true as what is presented." I wait for his reply, eager to get his point of view, for I know he is a keen critic, and that he is quite unlikely to agree with me, but when it comes he makes no reference to my in-