The Straggler: Dear Editor

Dear Editor

Is there any genre of literary endeavor lower—less significant, less regarded, more ephemeral—than the Letter To the Editor? Or any better illustration of the truth, first noted by one of the Roman authors, that writing is neither an art nor a science, but a disease? A person would indeed have to be suffering from some sort of malady to be so hungry for distinction as to give over half an hour to compose a letter, on a topic of public interest, addressed to a stranger, in the faint hope that it might see print, squinched into some newspaper between the thundering unsigned editorials and the dry ruminations of public intellectuals, or in the shadowy ad-fringed ditch between some magazine’s contents page and the warmup features.

About the Author

John Derbyshire

Mr. Derbyshire is a former contributing editor of National Review.

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Dear Editor

Is there any genre of literary endeavor lower—less significant, less regarded, more ephemeral—than the Letter To the Editor? Or any better illustration of the truth, first noted by one of the Roman authors, that writing is neither an art nor a science, but a disease? A person would indeed have to be suffering from some sort of malady to be so hungry for distinction as to give over half an hour to compose a letter, on a topic of public interest, addressed to a stranger, in the faint hope that it might see print, squinched into some newspaper between the thundering unsigned editorials and the dry ruminations of public intellectuals, or in the shadowy ad-fringed ditch between some magazine’s contents page and the warmup features.