Ten Years Among the Mail Bags: Or, Notes from the Diary of a Special Agent of the Post-Office DepartmentHolbrook, James
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Ten Years Among the Mail Bags: Or, Notes from the Diary of a Special Agent of the Post-Office Department
Holbrook, James
Postal service -- United States
Nor should we omit at least a passing notice of the humorous aspects
of our Bag. Physiognomy will not go far in aiding us to determine as
to a given letter, whether its contents are grave or gay. A
well-ordered epistle, like a highly bred man, does not show on its
face the emotions which it may contain. But in what we may call the
lower class of letters, where nature is untrammeled by envelopes, and
eccentricity or unskilfulness display themselves by the various shapes
and styles in which the documents are folded and directed, there is
more room for speculation on their internal character; and it is the
author's intention to furnish some rare specimens of unconscious humor
of this kind, for the delectation of his readers.
As we contemplate the wit, fun, humor, and jollity of all sorts, which
lie dormant within these wrappages, we are tempted to retract our
commiseration for the imaginary official whom we have supposed to know
the contents of the letters in his charge, and therefore drag out a
miserable existence under their depressing influence. At least we feel
impelled to modify our remarks so far as to say that in the case
supposed, his days would be passed in alternate cachinnations and
sympathizing grief. He would become a storehouse of wit, a magazine of
humor. For there is much of wit, humor, and jollity running through
these secret channels, that never is diffused through the medium of
the press, but flows among the privacies of domestic circles, adding
life to their intercourse, and increasing the attractions of social
fellowship, like some sparkling stream, both refreshing and adorning
the landscape through which it takes its course.
We leave the further development of this prolific train of thought, to
the reader's imagination. Yet the imagination can devise no
combination more strange than those which may be found every day
within the narrow precincts of which we have been speaking; and the
same may be said of the Post-Office system at large, interwoven as it
is with the whole social life of civilized man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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