Letters And Email

Besides the loss to scientific history due to letters being supplanted by email correspondence between scientists, future generations may not know the amazing genre of letters exchanged poets, philosophers, artists, writers who wrote to peers, friends and family. They would remain strangers to the human side of genius and celebrity alike.

Before, unlimited email storage became common, most people were forced to purge their mailboxes periodically to make room for new email. Not everyone bothered to save these electronic notes elsewhere. If they lived in today's world there would be no letters from Franz Kafka to Milena, the fifty years of correspondence between Graham Greene and R.K Narayan or letters from Rudyard Kipling to his children

To all of us who have loved reading those letters and many more, years after they were written, it was our way of getting to know the person behind the name. With every unsaved and deleted email we will know corresponding less of the minds we admire.