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中国宋代词人晏几道曾写《蝶恋花》：“欲尽此情书尺素，浮雁沉鱼，终了无凭据。”词人倾诉于纸上，想寄予心爱之人，可她已流落不知去向，他不知将书信寄往何处，一腔热情不知向谁倾诉。本文作者生于现代西方国家，在这个人人都已习惯了发送电子邮件的时代，虽然年代、地域和环境都相差甚远，但怀揣长信而不知寄往何处的不安之情却是相通的。 I no longer run for the mail the way I used to. I remember, prior to the e-mail age, the sense of heightened anticipation as the hour of mail delivery approached, wondering what slender, handwritten treasures would appear in my box. I once received a letter from a long-lost friend and swelled with such joy that I ran the mail carrier down and shook his hand, as if he had done a heroic deed in conveying the missive to me. Once a day. Six days a week. That was the rhythm. Through snow, rain, heat, and gloom of night. I first learned to love the mail as a young boy. The first thing I ever received that was personally addressed to me was from my buddy Duane. We had been the fastest of 9-year-old friends. Then he moved away, to Massachusetts. The parting was difficult, but boys didn’t cry. Within the week, however, there was a letter in my mailbox. It was from Duane, and it read, “I’m OK, but I miss you.” That first conveyance to me of a written word from a great distance had all the import of the first Morse code message: “What hath God wrought.” It was at that moment that I became a letter writer, quickly discovering that the more letters I wrote, the more I received. | 
