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        I have just finished reading a very interesting book 'Funny Letters From Famous People' edited and introduced by Charles Osgood. Charles Osgood is a celebrated wit, acclaimed broadcaster and humorist in USA. He is well known for his clever commentary and witty radio-show rhymes. In this book he has introduced a collection of hilarious letters from famous politicians, writers and stars of the stage and screen. There are funny letters from Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Oscar Wild, George Bernard Shaw, Earnest Hemingway, Dwight D Eisenhower and many other great personalities. Here are a few funny letters from very famous people in history — in politics, in literature and the fine arts.

        Introducing letters from politicians during the last 200 years, Charles Osgood comes out with this light hearted and hilarious free verse:

        '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 puts 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

Thomas Jefferson (1743 -1826), the third President of United States, was a great letter writer. In 1762, when he was just 19 years old, he spent a most unpleasant night sleeping or trying to sleep — at the house of one of his friends, surrounded by rats. On 25 December 1762, he wrote to his friend about his ordeal during night in the company of rats. I am furnishing just one paragraph from this letter.         '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 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's close friend was Mrs William S Smith who wrote to him while he was in Paris requesting him to send some corsets to her from France. Jefferson bought two corsets and sent them to her with an explanation that he had no idea at all about whether they would fit his friend because she had not sent her measurements. Here is the short letter fro Jefferson.         '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.

        Yours Sincerely,

        Jefferson'

        Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) was the 16th President of United States and the first Republican President. He fully believed in the dictum of Voltaire who said that a man who cannot laugh at himself has no right to exist! Abraham Lincoln had the rare ability to joke about himself with boisterous enthusiasm. He knew he was ugly ; he knew that the world around him knew as well that he was ugly and ungainly. It is one thing to know the truth about oneself ; but to write about it is quite another matter. Abraham Lincoln wrote to one of his friends about his physical personality as follows:

        'Dear 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 man, I would shoot him on sight. Not long after this, Andy ( a lawyer friend ) came to town and the first time I saw him I said to myself: 'Here is the man'. I went home, took down my gun, and prowled around the streets waiting for him. He soon came along 'Halt, Andy', said I, pointing the gun at him, 'say your prayers, for I am going to shoot you'. He replied 'Why, Mr Lincoln, what is the matter? What have I done?'

        'Well, I made an oath that if I ever saw an uglier man than I am, I'd shoot him on the spot. You are uglier, surely; so make ready to die'

        'Mr Lincoln, do you really think that I am uglier than you' 'YES'. 'Well,

        Mr Lincoln, said Andy deliberately and looking me squarely in the face, 'if I am any uglier, fire away.'

        In a similar vein, Abraham Lincoln wrote to a friend: 'I have one vice, and I can call it nothing else : it is not to be able to say 'NO'. Thank God for not making me a woman, but if He had, I suppose He would have made me just as ugly as He did, and no one would ever have tempted me.'

        Let us now turn to a funny letter from a world famous science fiction writer Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992 ) who was a prolific writer and edited more than 500 volumes and an estimated 90,000 letters or post cards. Asimov is widely considered a master of the science-fiction genre. Along with Robert A Heinlein and Arthur C Clarke, Asimov was considered to be one of the 'Big Three' science-fiction writers during his lifetime. Here is an amusing and witty letter which Asimov wrote to Carl Sagan in December 1974.

        'Dear Carl,

        I have just finished your great book 'The Cosmic Connection' and loved every word of it. You are my idea of a good writer because you have an unmannered style and when I read what you write, I hear you talking.

        One more thing about the book made me nervous. It was entirely too obvious that you are smarter than I am. I hate that.

        Yours truly,

        Isaac Asimov'

        George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950) was as prolific a letter writer as he was a playwright, essayist and critic. Once he went to a hair dressing saloon and this is how he described 'A most fearful tragedy' to his friend Janet Achurch :

        29, Fitzroy Square W

        14th January 1896

        Dear Janet,

        A most fearful tragedy has happened to me. It is impossible that I should see you for a month at least; so all idea of your coming back to town or my going down to St Leonards must be abandoned. Today I went to get my hair cut. The man asked whether I wanted it short. I said 'Yes', and was about to add some reservations when he suddenly produced an instrument like a lawnmower. All in an instant my golden locks fell like withered grass to the floor and left my head like the back of a Japanese pug dog. Nothing escaped except a little wiglike oasis on the top. I say wig like; for the climax of the horror was that, unknown to me, these auburn tresses with which you are familiar, concealed a grey — nay, a white — undergrowth, which is now an overgrowth. People ask me now what fearful shock I have experienced to turn my hair white in a single night. There must be some frightful mistake about my age : I am not in my fortieth year, but in my sixtieth ! For God's sake, tell me that you believe that it will grow red again— at least you hope so

        Yours,

        George Bernard Shaw (GBS)

        James Thurber (1894-1961) was another great letter writer who continuously either amused or annoyed his readers. According to the neuroscientist V S Ramachandran, Thurber's imagination was significantly affected by his damaged vision and consequently he was under the spell of several hallucinations from time to time. Be that as it may, here is the story of a funny letter sent by him to the Harvard Business School in 1961. Harvard Business School invited him to give a guest lecture in 1961. Thurber was in his late 60's and was completely blind. He replied from London:

        'I had to give up public appearances when I became a 100 and went blind nearly 20 years ago, and, besides, I am now in Europe and in the Fall expect to be in Jeopardy.

        Thanks anyway, and all best wishes.'

        I would like to give a few brilliant quotations from Thurber's writings:

        'If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons.'

        'Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.'

        'Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.'

        'It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.'

        'You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.'

        'Don't get it right; get it written.'

        'Never allow a nervous female to have access to a pistol, no matter what you're wearing.'

        ·'Precision of communication is important, more important than ever, in our era of hair trigger balances, when a false or misunderstood word may create as much disaster as a sudden thoughtless act.'

        Today letter writing has become a dead art. We have voluntarily handed our passionate feelings, thoughts, emotions and sentiments — our gastric juices of the soul — to the e-mail, the internet, word processing, cell phones, and answering machines. The elegance of the English language, the beauty of the English language, the sensitive subtlety of the English language have all been destroyed in one stroke by these technological contraptions.