It is wonderful to consider how the ancients apparently got on without
the use of any sort of prefix or affix to their names on the roll of
parchment or fold of papyrus addressed to them. For all we know, Caesar
was simply C. Julius Caesar to his correspondents, and Pericles was yet
more simply Pericles to the least of his fellow-citizens. These
historical personages may have had the number of their houses inscribed
on their letters; or Pericles might have had Son of Xanthippus added to
his name for purposes of identification; but apparently he managed quite
as well as our Presidents, without anything equivalent to Excellency or
Hon. or Mr. or Esq. To be sure, with the decline of
"The glory that was Greece
And the grandeur that was Rome,"
name-honors crept in more and more. It was then not only politer but
much safer to address your petition To the Divine Domitian, or To the
Divine Nero, than to greet those emperors by the mere given names which
were not yet Christian; probably it would not have been enough to add
Caesar to the last name, though Caesar seems to have finally served the
turn of Esq., for all the right that the emperors had to bear it. In the
Eastern Empire, we are not ready to say what was the correct style for
imperial dignitaries; but among the sovereigns who divided the Roman
state and inherited its splendor, some rulers came to be sacred
majesties, though this is still a sensible remove from divine.
However, our present difficulty is with that vast average who in common
parlance are Mr. and Mrs. Smythe Johnes. How shall they be styled on the
backs of their letters? How shall Mrs. Smythe Johnes especially, in
signing herself Mary Johnes, indicate that she is not Miss Mary but Mrs.
Smythe Johnes? When she is left a widow, how soon does she cease to be
Mrs. Smythe Johnes and become Mrs. Mary? Is it requisite to write in the
case of any literary doctorate, Smythe Johnes, LL.D., or Litt.D., or
Ph.D., or is it sufficient to write Dr. before his name? In the case of
a divine, do you put Rev. Dr. before the name, or Rev. before it and
D.D. after it? These are important questions, or, if they are not
important, they are at least interesting. Among the vast mass of
unceremonied, or call it unmannered, Americans the receiver of a letter
probably knows no better than the sender how it should be addressed; but
in the rarer case in which he does know, his self-respect or his
self-love is wounded if it is misaddressed. It is something like having
your name misspelled, though of course not so bad as that, quite; and
every one would be glad to avoid the chance of it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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