June 05, 2005"When we write to someone regularly, we begin to look forward to his letters and to feel increasing emotion at the sight of the familiar envelope. But if we are honest with ourselves we will acknowledge that the chief pleasure of the correspondence lies in its responsive aspect rather than in its receptive one. It is with our own epistolary persona that we fall in love, rather than with that of our pen pal; what makes the arrival of a letter a momentous event is the occasion it affords for writing rather than reading." -- Janet Malcolm, The Journalist and the Murderer, p. 142
