Anton Chekhov's rules for writing, as seen in an 1886 letter to his brother, include "total objectivity," "extreme brevity," and, of course, "compassion."
Leonard Cohen's love letters to Marianne Ihlen, which also described the writing and publication of Cohen's novels, recently sold for a whopping $876,000.
What did the letter X stand for before xylophones and x-rays? Past examples include historical figures, plants, and animals, all mostly of a Greek bent.