Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2010 09:33:09 -0500
From: "Michael Walsh" <mjw at press.jhu.edu>
To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Cad! Bounder! was: [WSFA] Re: [Fwd: letters of note]
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

> "Mike B." <yahoo at omniphile.com> 1/29/2010 12:28 AM >>>
>I once got a book for my dad, called, "Hate Mail Through The Ages".

Perhaps this: "Dear Sir, Drop Dead! Hate Mail Through the Ages" by
Donald Carroll.  Published by Collier Macmillan in 1979.  Really
inexpensive copies are available on Amazon.  How inexpensive?  How does
a penny strike you?  Plus $3.99 for shipping.

>There was one from Mark Twain to the Edison Gas and Light company (or

>something like that) that was at least as good.  Really drives home
the
>adage about not making an enemy of someone who buys ink by the
barrel.
>
>An even better one was from George Bernard Shaw to the local opera
>house, about their dress code, or lack of it.  Triggered by a woman
with
>one of those stupid hats that were popular at the time.  I can't
>remember all of it...it was fairly long...but the part describing the

>hat was really good.  "...which included the pitiable carcase of a
dead
>bird that appeared to have been nailed to the side of her forehead.
>While I have no doubt that that edifice was of sufficient substance to

>withstand the operation..." etc.
>
>Not all of the letters were that good.  Some were just
profanity-filled
>diatribes, but there was one other good one.  It was from a critic,
>responding to a hate letter from an author after a poor review of the

>author's work.  It said, in full, "Dear sir.  I am seated in the
>smallest room in the house; your letter is before me.  Soon it will be

>behind me."

Generally attributed to German composer Max Reger, tho some say
Voltaire.

It's better in German:
"Ich sitze in dem kleinsten Zimmer in meinem Hause. Ich habe Ihre
Kritik vor mir. Im nächsten Augenblick wird sie hinter mir sein."

Source: the marvellous Lexicon of Musical Invective by Nicolas
Slonimsky.
<http://frindley.typepad.com/colophon/2008/04/the-smallest--1.html>

For more fun:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/5725212/Alain-de-Botton-Youll-regret-those-words-until-your-dying-day.html

mjw