The Times is encouraging its readers with the slogan “Make history. Write to The Times today.” Its appeals for letters to the editor come with quotations from those by the famous.“The opinions of English critics on a French work of mine have, of course, little, if any, interest for me,” wrote Oscar Wilde in 1893 of a review of his play, Salome. “It is only by encouragement of a child’s creativity that we shall produce great literature in the future,” wrote P. D. James in 1991.Quoting famous names implies that in fact readers’ letters won’t make history unless the reader happens to be famous. Yet readers’ letters do reflect history, acquiring with the years an interest perhaps lacking at the time. When you take up a carpet and fin