Letter writing is a lost art, one that today persists only in the realm of fiction through the epistolary novel. The advent of the telephone, not to mention the internet, combined with the ease of long-distance travel, has made letter writing all but obsolete.
But read the letters of historical figures and you’ll be in a world of keen observation, dry wit and a facility with words that simply doesn’t exist anymore.
One of my favorite non-fiction books is The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters, through whom the story of the 20th century is told. Nancy became a famous novelist; Diana married Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British fascists; Unity was obsessed with Nazism and Adolf Hitler; Jessica was an avowed communist and recognized muckraker. (There were two others, one of whom was a duchess.)
Diana was close friends with Wallis Simpson, the wife of the Duke of Windsor, once known as King Edward VIII. The two had much in common, both being exiles known for their fondness of Nazis.
In Traitor King, a new biography of the Duke and Duchess, Andrew Lownie consolidates the evidence that the Duke was ready to reassert himself as king if (or when) Britain negotiated peace with Nazi Germany.
The abdication is one of those potent “What if?” moments. For us Jews, a negotiated peace between the UK and Germany would have ensured the total success of Hitler’s Final Solution.
Would dictatorships, like those that persisted in Spain and Portugal, have become the global norm? Or would the US have been successful against Imperial Japan and still managed to become a global superpower?
Reading Traitor King, I was reminded of a line from one of the great letter writers — Abraham Lincoln. “You are not lazy, and still you are an idler,” he rebuked his brother.
But Lincoln’s sharp observation applies perfectly to the Duke of Windsor. Following his abdication he personified this paradox. The sad part is that he didn’t need to be an idler. He certainly had the means to pursue any number of goals. Instead, he opted to fill his life with unimportant pursuits, continuously begging for a prominent appointment.
Rest and relaxation are important, but idleness implies vacuity. If we want our lives to be meaningful, it’s up to us to fill them with meaning.
A good lesson looking ahead to the High Holidays.
Shana Goldberg may be reached at shana@ijn.com
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