Funny Letters from Famous People

I POLITICIANS Politics is never far from a politician's mind. And in almost every politician's letter you can find Pointing with pride while at the same time viewing with alarm, As with wonderful dexterity he almost breaks his arm, Spinning contradictions with such gymnastic knack That with all humility he pats himself upon the back. He often makes us laugh out loud; but what is most mysterious Is why he's at his funniest when trying to be serious. --Charles Osgood George Washington When it came to the subject of marriage, George Washington certainly was of several minds, all of them witty. A thirty-eight-year-old bachelor, one Tench Tilghman, wrote to General Washington to explain that he had gotten married while on his overstayed leave. Washington wrote back: Dear Tench: We have had various conjectures about you. Some thought you were dead, others that you were married. Washington sent a congratulatory if slightly bizarre message to Governor Henry Lee of Virginia on the occasion of his marriage: My dear Gov. Lee: You have exchanged the rugged field of Mars for the soft and pleasurable bed of Venus. About the marriage of his friend Colonel Ward, Washington wrote to a mutual friend: I am glad to hear that my old acquaintance Colonel Ward is yet under the influence of vigorous passions. I will not ascribe the intrepidity of his late enterprise to a mere flash of desires, because in his military career he would have learnt how to distinguish between false alarm and a serious movement. Charity therefore induces me to suppose that like a prudent general, he had reviewed his strength, his arms, and ammunition before he got involved in an action. But if these have been neglected, and he has been precipitated into the measure, let me advise him to make the first onset upon his fair Del Toboso [a reference to the title invented by Don Quixote for his ladylove] with vigor, that the impression may be deep, if it cannot be lasting, or frequently renewed. Thomas Jefferson At twenty, Thomas Jefferson spent a most unpleasant night sleeping--or trying to sleep--at a friend's house. He wrote to a mutual friend on Christmas Day in 1762, describing his tribulations. The letter, in part: The cursed rats ate up my pocketbook which was in my pocket within a foot of my head. And not contented with plenty for the present, they carried away my jemmy-worked silk garters and half a dozen new minuets I had just got. Of this I should not have accused the devil--because you know rats will be rats. Jefferson had a good friend, a Mrs. William S. Smith, who wrote him while he was in Paris to ask him to determine the disposition of some corsets she had ordered there some time before and had yet to receive. Jefferson bought two corsets and sent them to her with a letter explaining that he had no idea whether they would fit, because she had not sent her measurements: My dear Mrs. Smith, . . . If too small, then lay them aside for a time. There are ebbs as well as flows in this world. When the mountain refused to come to Mahomet, he went to the mountain. Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln was always prepared to joke about himself--especially when it came to his physical appearance. By the standards of the day, he was indeed considered quite ungainly. He wrote to a friend: One day . . . I got into a fit of musing in my room and stood resting my elbows on the bureau. Looking into the glass, it struck me what an ugly man I was. The fact grew on me and I made up my mind that I must be the ugliest man in the world. It so maddened me that I resolved, should I ever see an uglier, I would shoot him on sight. Not long after this, Andy [naming a lawyer present] came to town and the first time I saw him I said to myself: "ThereOsgood, Charles is the author of 'Funny Letters from Famous People', published 2003 under ISBN 9780767911757 and ISBN 076791175X.