Every so often, we get a poignant reminder of what has been lost now that letter writing has been replaced by texting, emoticons or nothing at all, if you're a politician afraid to commit anything to paper for fear it will show up on page one or be read aloud by a committee chairman on a tear.

History is the poorer for it. Never more will we have a Winston Churchill or Franklin D. Roosevelt, Teddy or Ike free to memorialize in real time what is going on in their heads and hearts.

This makes the trove of love letters written by Warren Harding, to be unsealed at the Library of Congress and published online later this month, all the more appealing.