I wonder if T.S. Eliot had any inkling

...that his letters would eventually be put up for auction? I wonder if he wrote them with that in the back of his mind, functioning as editor?

I remember breaking into giggles when I was reading Madame de Sevigne: Selected Letters, thinking I'd better smarten up with my letter writing so I might one day bequeath "an extraordinarily vivid picture of life" in Canada as the book jacket says she had of the France of Louis XIV. It's been at least 10 years since I read that book. These days my letter writing is e-regular, e for email of course, and my internal editor sits feet up and snoozing, not a worry in the world, letting all the wayward marshmallows and puffed wheat through. Yes, marshmallows and puffed wheat made it into recent letters. Clearly my internal editor has a sweet tooth and a vision of a future that does not include an auction block.