An email tends to be answered at once or never, especially if it is an email to a friend. Because if such an email is not answered at once, the feeling of guilt for not having answered it alongside the responsibility to write a proper response make it impossible to write, and for each passing day the impossibility grows.
Tempted to assume that this is a result of our age of too-easy communication I was surprised to discover, when reading letters from around 1800, how many of them begin with an excuse for not having written sooner. And then it should be taken into consideration that at that time the receiver paid the postage. Which is to say that each letter placed a double burden on the receiver – not only the obligation to write back (and hence the threatening growing impossibility) but also a monetary debt, however minor (although, for instance, Elizabeth Hitchener had to almost destitute herself to receive Percy Bysshe Shelley’s enthusiastic letters). Generosity, then, would be to write with no expectation of a response.
Taking the time to write a letter should have the same weight as the time taken for a conversation. And as little distraction.
Thoughts fallen by the wayside 