On October 15, 1860, an 11 year old Grace Bedell wrote to would be President Abraham Lincoln encouraging him to grow his whiskers. (transcript beneath):

Hon A B Lincoln…

Dear Sir

My father has just home from the fair and brought home your picture and Mr. Hamlin’s. I am a little girl only 11 years old, but want you should be President of the United States very much so I hope you wont think me very bold to write to such a great man as you are. Have you any little girls about as large as I am if so give them my love and tell her to write to me if you cannot answer this letter. I have got 4 brothers and part of them will vote for you any way and if you let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you you would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President. My father is going to vote for you and if I was a man I would vote for you to but I will try to get every one to vote for you that I can I think that rail fence around your picture makes it look very pretty I have got a little baby sister she is nine weeks old and is just as cunning as can be. When you direct your letter direct to Grace Bedell Westfield Chautauqua County New York.

I must not write any more answer this letter right off Good bye

Grace Bedell

Four days later Lincoln responded (transcript beneath):

Springfield, Ill Oct 19, 1860

Miss Grace Bedell

My dear little Miss

Your very agreeable letter of the 15th is received - I regret the necessity of saying I have no daughters - I have three sons - one seventeen, one nine, and one seven years of age - They, with their mother, constitute my whole family - As to the whiskers, having never worn any, do you not think people would call it a piece of silly affectation if I were to begin it now?

Your very sincere well wisher

A. Lincoln

Lincoln did begin to grow a beard and by the time of his inaugural train journey his was a suitably whiskered face. When the train reached Bedell’s hometown of Westfield New York Lincoln asked the crowd of well wishers if Miss Bedell was amongst those present. After some commotion, the young lady was presented to Mr. Lincoln. He spoke with her for some short while. As Bedell recalled years later, "He climbed down and sat down with me on the edge of the station platform," she recalled. "‘Gracie,’ he said, ‘look at my whiskers. I have been growing them for you.’ Then he kissed me. I never saw him again."

_{{via Letters of Note}}

When J.H. Todd, a medicine salesman attempted to sell Mark Twain some of his questionable ‘elixir’ by letter, he probably should have known what he was letting himself in for. What he likely didn’t know was that Twain held a particular interest in the claims made by Todd and his medicine as The Elixir of Life boasted it could cure meningitis (which killed Twain’s daughter) and diptheria (which had killed his infant son). When Todd’s correspondence was received, Twain had been recently widowed and was himself in poor health. The following letter was his reply (transcript beneath):

Transcript:

Nov. 20. 1905

J. H. Todd
1212 Webster St.
San Francisco, Cal.

Dear Sir,

Your letter is an insoluble puzzle to me. The handwriting is good and exhibits considerable character, and there are even traces of intelligence in what you say, yet the letter and the accompanying advertisements profess to be the work of the same hand. The person who wrote the advertisements is without doubt the most ignorant person now alive on the planet; also without doubt he is an idiot, an idiot of the 33rd degree, and scion of an ancestral procession of idiots stretching back to the Missing Link. It puzzles me to make out how the same hand could have constructed your letter and your advertisements. Puzzles fret me, puzzles annoy me, puzzles exasperate me; and always, for a moment, they arouse in me an unkind state of mind toward the person who has puzzled me. A few moments from now my resentment will have faded and passed and I shall probably even be praying for you; but while there is yet time I hasten to wish that you may take a dose of your own poison by mistake, and enter swiftly into the damnation which you and all other patent medicine assassins have so remorselessly earned and do so richly deserve.

Adieu, adieu, adieu!

Mark Twain

_{via {Berryhill & Sturgeon, Ltd.}}

Now THAT’s a project brief!

The art of letter writing is an art swiftly dying. So with the assistance of a 1908 edition of The Complete Letter-Writer for Ladies and Gentlemen I hope to remind myself how best to manage such weighty social matters as an invitation to stay in the country if you happen to own a castle and know a Colonel who enjoys a spot of ‘tramping’.

I do not, and I do. Entry No. 17 is a God-send.