2000 Charles River Review: Writing Assignment #2

Dear Mr. Tudor:

I am writing concerning the extensive renovation of your residence you've performed in the year since you've moved in, and the effect it is having on my family and the rest of the neighborhood. First is an issue of style. While we all feel fortunate to live in a community of such lovely old houses, your other neighbors and I feel that you've taken Gothic Revival a bit too far. Of course I like a stone wall as much as anyone else, but 20 feet tall and ten feet thick? You have erected ramparts, and the shadow they cast over my garden has ruined the idyllic mood that we have worked hard to achieve. The cold walls and lack of sun have withered our beautiful roses and the content smile on my wife's face.

There is another important issue we must resolve: property lines. Your moat seems to cross into our land. When I saw that half my driveway had been destroyed, I felt it necessary to hire a surveyor--who, by the way, did not at all appreciate the harassment of your archers; arrows are not toys. Another issue raised by your moat is the crocodiles. While most of the time they keep to themselves, in periods of heavy rain, when the water level of your moat rises, they tend to slither freely throughout the neighborhood. This is unacceptable, as is the foul stench of the moat's waters. Your regular dumping of buckets of raw sewerage must stop before we have the Plague on our hands.

Finally, there is always a rather rough bunch of people camped out around your walls. I find much of their behavior objectionable: constant fighting, shouting, and cursing; heavy drinking; loud singing, banging, and yodeling; open fires; littering. Most troublesome is their constant salvaging for wood on my property. My picnic table is missing, my lawn chairs are gone, and much of my deck has disappeared.

What just a year ago was a peaceful hamlet of playing children and chiming dinner bells is now a nightmare of screaming damsels and tolling bells. You say "Move." But not a single real estate agent is willing to list our houses, and any prospective buyers we do find are chased off by your thugs on horseback with lances drawn. No, you are the one who must leave. You have left us no choice but to fight back: we are not going to take it anymore. I will write a letter to Cardinal Wolsey. I will put down my pen and raise my sword. I will call to arms the oppressed. I will catapult the largest possible stones over your walls. I will rape. I will pillage. And then I will get really nasty. You have been warned.

Most sincerely,

Thomas More