Explore "The Caste of the Articulate" by Gelett Burgess on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Fair or unfair though it be, I have come to accept a letter as the final test of the personality of a new acquaintance. Not of his or her intellect or moral worth, perhaps, but the register of that rare power which dominates all attributes -- that peculiar aroma, flavour, _timbre_, or colour which makes some of our friends eternally exceptional. "Who dares classify him and label him, sins against the Holy Ghost; I, for one, think I know him only inasmuch as I refuse to sum him up. I cannot find his name in the dictionary; I cannot make a map of him; I cannot write his epitaph. " So writes Sonia of a friend with such a personality, and you will see by this that Sonia herself is of the caste of the Articulate.
We are influenced first by sight, then by sound, and, lastly, by the written word. "She spoke, and lo! her loveliness methought she damaged with her tongue! " is the description of many a woman who appeals to the eye alone. And in something the same way many who fascinate us with their glamour while face to face, shock us by the dreary commonplaceness of their letters.