The Knife on the Desk and the Art of Correspondence
Letter Opener © Murney Tower Museum
Dear Messrs. and Mesdames,
When was the last time you put a pen to paper and hand wrote a letter? Not too recently, most likely. And when you have, you surely did not concern yourself too deeply with the nature, structure, or manner of your writing – you just let the words flow.
This was certainly not the case two hundred years ago. Consider the following description: “A letter should be regarded not merely as a medium for the communication of intelligence, but also as a work of art. As beauty of words, tone, and manner adds a charm to speech, so elegance of materials, writing, and general appearance enhance the pleasure bestowed by a letter.” This passage can be found in an 1883 book by J. Willis Westlake, titled How to Write Letters: A Manual of Correspondence (Westlake, 1883). This 260-page book instructs the reader, down to the finest detail, in the intricate and indispensable art of letter-writing. It covers structure, rhetoric, materials, orthography, punctuation – any possible question you could have about letter-writing, you could be sure to find your answer, in the greatest detail, among these pages.
While letter-writing (or “snail mail”) is today a dated form of communication, in the 1800s it was only beginning to take hold as a popular, accessible, and widespread means of contacting others[1] . In Canada, the Act for the Regulation of Postal Service came into effect on April 1, 1868. For the first time, uniform postal service was provided throughout the country. The Canadian post office was designed on the British model, where postal service too was a new and revolutionary phenomenon. Twenty-nine years earlier, the Postal Reform Act of 1839 in the United Kingdom had allowed anyone, from any social class, to send a letter anywhere in the country for only a penny (Golden, 2009). Indeed, “sending letters, newspapers, books, and other information by post was as revolutionary to the Victorians as e-mail, text messaging, and handheld ‘gadgets are to us today” (Golden, 2009, 4). And this revolution in communication gave rise to its own formulaic regulations, social customs, and expected conventions. Westlake, therefore, emphasizes in his letter-writing manual the importance of excellent writing. “Bad letters are like store bills,” he writes. “The fewer and the shorter they are, the better pleased is the recipient” (Westlake, 1883, 49).
The art of letter-writing is a well-documented and well-discussed area of research. Of less interest, however, are those tools which enabled and empowered the reception of these letters. Take, for example, this small, easily overlooked artifact pictured above. It is a letter opener. The moment you received that letter you had been waiting for, you could reach for this little tool without hesitation and easily access the contents inside the envelope. Indeed, in the nineteenth century, “the use of the letter opener for opening something special, which might always involve a little secret, became part of the discovering process and developed into a ritual” (Vollkommer, 2011, 5).
And if letter-writing is a long-lost art, so too is the work that artists used to employ in the design of letter openers themselves. Today simple, sleek, and silver devices, letter openers used to sport a dizzying array of artistic designs. Archaeologist Dr. Rainer Vollkommer writes that “the letter opener gave wings to fantasy, in particular, that of artists. The letter opener was decorated and became an independent little work of art. The design of the letter opener could express longings, dreams, fantasies, manifestations, faiths, knowledge and many other things” (Vollkommer, 2011, 5).
Who would have thought that this little tool in our collection would have been part of such an artistic surge? Our letter opener is in fact also a coronation souvenir, commemorating the coronation of King George V and Queen Mary on June 22, 1911. The king’s portrait features at the top of the tool, with the words “Compliments of Patrick Thomson LTD Edinburgh” beneath it.
Based on these clues, we can deduce that this letter opener, which found its way into a Kingston resident’s home, came from the Patrick Thomson Ltd department store in Edinburgh. Established in 1889, Patrick Thomson Ltd became one of the largest department stores in the city and remained in business, under varying management, until the 1970s. Known affectionately as PTs, rumor has it you could even get a haircut at this store – atop a carousel horse (The Newsroom, 2016).
How times have changed. Now we always get our haircuts at hair salons, not at department stores (and certainly not while sitting on a carousel horse). We no longer write letters, and the demand for letter openers has unquestionably diminished. We send texts and emails and wonder why it has taken the recipient over one hour to reply. But, as a form both of correspondence and of art, letter-writing can be revived – this is your sign to take a piece of paper (only white, according to Westlake), find a pen (never with red ink, and preferably black), and write a loved one a letter.
Ever, my dear readers, most faithfully yours,
Alison Dringenberg