Arendt often typed replies on the reverse side of the original letters that she received.

The letter one sends in order to help one’s correspondent —advise him, exhort him, admonish him, console him— constitutes for the writer a kind of training: something like soldiers in peacetime practicing the manual of arms, the opinions that one gives to others in a pressing situation are a way of preparing oneself for a similar eventuality.

etter writing continued as a medium for theinformal exchange of information and for requesting fellowscientists to replicate experiments (Manten, 1980, p. 8).