It’s a result of how long it took to send messages (days to months, depending on where the recipient was), and that it didn’t usually cost more to send six shee

It’s a result of how long it took to send messages (days to months, depending on where the recipient was), and that it didn’t usually cost more to send six sheets of paper than one. You wanted to make sure to write everything you had to say. [edit] it should be added that most of the people whose long letters are interesting and well-written enough that we still care about them were educated a particular kind of way, or at least were immersed in a culture of those who were. Classics and rhetoric—as in, they most likely read and considered parts of Ars Rhetorica during their education—to a much greater degree than we treat those subjects now. We move farther every year, it seems, from considering those to have any value for most people.