Edna St. Vincent Millay on the love of music – a beautiful 1920 letter.
letters
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Would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss waiter talks, and that when I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will stay split, and when I interrupt the velvety smoothness of my more or less literate syntax with a few sudden words of barroom vernacular, this is done with the eyes wide open and the mind relaxed but attentive.
I believe in art’s social presence—as breaker of official silences, as voice for those whose voices are disregarded, and as a human birthright. … I don’t think we can separate art from overall human dignity and hope.
Poet Adrienne Rich, born on May 16, 1948, adds to history’s finest definitions of art in the historic letter that made her the only person in history to decline the prestigious National Medal of Arts.
“Dearest Marty” – an illustrated 1951 letter from 18-year-old Sylvia Plath. Did you know she was a rather gifted artist?
Pair with a peek inside Plath’s journals and her little-known children’s books.
Women’s rights pioneer Elizabeth Cady Stanton in a letter to her daughter, 1872.
One day last week I pulled up to a four-way stop in my taxi. At one of the other stop signs sat a police officer in a chase cruiser, and at the third, a telephone installer in a Bell Canada van. What made the occasion memorable was the fact that all three of us were women. We celebrated with much joyful laughter and raised thumbs.
Jill Wood
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
November 1980 issue
Letters to Ms. – remarkable selections from the “social media” of the 1970s and 1980s, the vehicle through which the women to whom we owe so much stood together and raised their voices.
I resigned from my job yesterday as a matter of principle. I was given a letter to type by a senior secretary to the auditing firm that had recently been in our books. A woman headed up the team of accountants at our company for several weeks.
The letter was opened to “Gentlemen.” I changed it to “Greetings.” I was told that the letter must be redone because it was the policy of the company to use the salutation “Gentlemen.” I was told that management determined company policy, not uppity secretaries who didn’t know their place. I decided to resign and didn’t redo the letter.
I’m looking for another job, but I did raise quite a few eyebrows and, hopefully, someone’s consciousness.
Name Withheld
September 12, 1982
One of the small acts of courage and defiance that sparked the Second Wave of Feminism and paved the way for much of what we take for granted today.
It occurred to me the other day to wonder at the discrepancy in wages that I pay to those high-school students who baby sit and those who do lawn cutting and gardening for me. Most of the “lawn and garden” people, who happen to be boys ask for a dollar an hour. Most of the baby sitters, who usually happen to be girls, ask seventy-five cents an hour.
Now I ask myself, is caring for my children less important, less valuable, less a responsibility? Or is lawn cutting and gardening considered harder and more taxing physical work? (Two active children under five can be pretty hard, taxing, physical work, too.) Or is it that boys just ask for and receive high wages from the beginning? And is it that child care is, anyway, considered to be “women’s work” and not deserving of pay? Click!
Marge Mitchell
Baltimore, Maryland
September 1974 issue
These vintage letters to pioneering feminist magazine Ms. bespeak both how far we’ve come in some ways and how little has changed in others.
Why do advertisers persist in selling the image of the beautiful, shapely woman executive who keeps the same perfectly made-up face and styled hair, even after a hard day of earning a six-figure salary, dining in expensive restaurants, having a brisk game of tennis at the club, and a late night of discotheque hopping? It’s no surprise that real women are tempted to wonder what they’re doing wrong.
How little has changed since this 1980 reader letter to pioneering feminist magazine Ms.
The acquirements which I hope you will make under the tutors I have provided for you will render you more worthy of my love; and if they cannot increase it, they will prevent its diminution…. I have placed my happiness on seeing you good and accomplished, and no distress which this world can now bring on me could equal that of your disappointing my hopes. If you love me then, strive to be good under every situation and to all living creatures, and to acquire those accomplishments which I have put in your power, and which will go far towards ensuring you the warmest love of your affectionate father.
In this 1783 letter, Thomas Jefferson lays on his 11-year-old daughter the weight of parental pressure that deems the missive a far cry from history’s best letters of fatherly advice.
On occasion, I write pretty well.
In which young Kurt Vonnegut, still relatively obscure, volunteers his services to JFK’s presidential campaign. Pair with Vonnegut on the shapes of stories, his daily routine, and his 8 keys to the power of the written word.
On the clock striking twelve he appeared slightly agitated, but he soon recovered, walked twice or thrice along the coach-house, stopped to bark, staggered, exclaimed “Halloa old girl!” (his favorite expression) and died. He behaved throughout with decent fortitude, equanimity and self-possession.
An amusing letter Charles Dickens wrote on the death of his beloved pet raven, Grip – one of history’s notable literary pets extolled in famous authors’ letters and journals.
Our cat is growing positively tyrannical. If she finds herself alone anywhere she emits blood curdling yells until somebody comes running. She sleeps on a table in the service porch and now demands to be lifted up and down from it. She gets warm milk about eight o’clock at night and starts yelling for it about 7.30. When she gets it she drinks a little, goes off and sits under a chair, then comes and yells all over again for someone to stand beside her while has another go at the milk. When we have company she looks them over and decides almost instantly if she likes them. If she does she strolls over and plops down on the floor far enough away to make it a chore to pet her. If she doesn’t like them, she sits in the middle of the living room, casts a contemptuous glance around, and proceeds to wash her backside.
Raymond Chandler on his cat Taki, and other famous authors’ effusive love letters to their pets.
