Very kindly done, certainly, and I accepted the offer with eagerness. I was to rest that evening, he said—I had had enough for one day; but it was understood that on other evenings generally he was to come to Mr. Bull's and instruct his assistant teacher in the A B C of mathematics. I could not help thinking that few employers would have taken this trouble.
Mr. Bull appeared to be of no earthly use in the household except to go to the door, which, in Peppersville, was not an onerous duty; and had I not so frequently seen the same thing, I should have wondered what Mrs. Bull ever married him for. From frequent references to the time 'when Mr. Bull was in the store,' I came to the conclusion that he had once dealt in the heterogeneous collection of articles usually found in such places. I was not informed whether Mr. Bull had 'given up the store,' or whether 'the store' had given up Mr. Bull; but I was disposed to entertain the latter idea.
There was no servant in the establishment except an old Indian woman, who amused herself by preparing vegetables and washing dishes in the kitchen—not being at all active, in consequence of having lost part of her feet from indulging in a fancy for a couch of snow on one of the coldest nights of the preceding winter, when, to use a charitable phrase, 'she was not quite herself.' I believe that, even after this melancholy warning, that eccentric person was frequently somebody else. 'However,' as Mrs. Bull said, 'she didn't disturb any one'—and although I could not exactly see the force of this reasoning, I treated it with respectful silence for Mrs. Bull's sake.
Miss Friggs, who was 'quite one of the family,' and had lived in it so long that I believe she almost persuaded herself that she had been born in it, 'did' her own room—which was perfectly appalling with its fearful neatness. There was not a thread on the carpet, nor a particle of dust in the corners; and the bed, when made up, was as accurately proportioned as though it had all been scientifically measured off. I have caught glimpses of Miss Friggs going about this business with her head carefully tied up, as though it might burst with the immensity of her ideas on the subject; and when she had finished, you might have eaten off the floor—that is, if you preferred it to a table. This was her oneoccupation in life, and she did it thoroughly; but it seemed too sad to have so few occupations that any could be accomplished in so faultless a manner.
Fired with honest but misguided zeal, I one morning entered the lists against Miss Friggs in a vain attempt to make my own bed; but those horrid feathers acted like the things in the Philosopher's Scales, for when some were up, others were down; neither north nor south, east nor west would agree to terms of equality, and it was impossible to bring them to any sort of compromise.
I related my experience to Mrs. Bull; and when I assured her that I had crawled all over the bed in the vain attempt to bring some order out of chaos, she was more amused, in her quiet way, than I had ever known her to be. She desired me, however, to leave the room, to her in future, as she enjoyed it, and I could not be expected to do everything. I did not interfere with her measures again.
A lesson had been given me to look over; and on Mr. Summers's first visit to me, in Mrs. Bull's parlor, I felt as if he had been a dentist with evil designs on my largest grinder. He was as cool as though he had been fifty and I five, and behaved himself generally as though it were a very common thing for youthful principals to give private lessons to their young lady-teachers.
Mr. Bull had made a fire, which was another talent that I discovered in him; and Mrs. Bull had given the room as much of a look of comfort as a room can have that is very seldom used. The good woman had even placed a dish of apples and doughnuts on a table in the corner—which, she said, were always on hand when Mr. Bull was paying his addresses to her; but the family did not appear to put any such construction on Mr. Summer's visits to me. I had told them that we had a great deal of school business in common; and they seemed to think it quite natural that we should have.
And to business Mr. Summers proceeded immediately on his arrival, throwing me into a state of complete confusion by asking me questions not definitely set down in the book, and calmly allowing me to blunder through to something like an end without the least interruption or assistance. I, whose childhood had for some time been made miserable by the question of a sharp schoolmate, 'Which is the heaviest—a pound of lead or a pound of feathers?' and her calm persistence that they were both alike, in spite of my passionate denial in favor of lead, was not likely to distinguish myself at these sittings; and whatever I had hitherto admired in Mr. Summers was now eclipsed by my appreciation of his extraordinary patience.
'You must think me a perfect fool!' I exclaimed, unguardedly.
'No,' replied my imperturbable companion, 'I consider you a very fair average.'
I bit my lip in anger at myself, and turned assiduously to my slate and pencil.
'You will take that for next time,' said my preceptor, rising at the end of an hour, and calling my attention to a portion that he had marked in pencil, 'when I shall be more particular about your recitations. Good evening.'
'Very romantic,' thought I, as I walked rather discontentedly into the sitting room, and I wondered what sort of stuff Mr. Summers was made of. I began to be afraid that I might be piqued into flirting with him.
He seemed to have the talent, though, of winning golden opinions from all sorts of people. Mr. Bull pronounced him 'a cute chap,' and 'real clever, too,' for he did not consider the terms synonymous. Mrs. Bull said that he was just the right person in the right place; and Miss Friggs declared that he was 'a young man among a thousand.' Not at Peppersville, certainly, for there were but five others in the place; but, to use the phraseologymost in vogue there, they could not hold a candle to him.
That quiet, overgrown girl, with her faultless recitations and steady pursuance of one idea, interested me exceedingly, and I determined to find out her history. I spoke of her to Mr. Summers, and he replied:
'Oh, yes; Helen Legram is quite an original. 'Born of poor, but respectable parents,' I have little doubt that she will turn out like the heroes of all biographies that commence in a similar manner. Her father is a very plain farmer, living somewhere among the mountains, with a large family to provide for; and Helen, in consequence, has hitherto enjoyed no advantages in the way of education beyond those obtained from an occasional quarter at the district school. In the intervals she had to wash, bake, mend, and make, with untiring industry, with short snatches of reading, her only indulgence; until, last summer, a relative, well to do in the world, spent some months at the mountain farm, and presented Helen with the means of obtaining her heart's desire—a thorough education. To that end she is now assiduously devoting herself in the spirit of Milton, who 'cared not how late he came into life, only that he came fit.' Helen Legram is a plain, unformed country girl; but she has those three handmaids of talent who so frequently eclipse their mistress: industry, patience, and perseverance; and I prophesy that not only will she succeed in her present undertaking, but win for herself a name among the Hannah Mores and Corinnes of posterity. What a wife such a woman would make!'
I wondered if he was engaged to her? They were about the same age, and being entirely opposite in every respect, it was quite natural that they should fall in love with each other.
I had some trouble with my tall pupil in French, as she had not quite the Parisian accent, and at her time of life it was not easy to acquire it. She persevered, though, with unparalleled firmness; and as she wished to study Latin, I was obliged to learn it myself, from Mr. Summers. I pitied that man when I began to stumble through the declensions. Virgil would have torn his hair in frenzy at such rendering of his lines, and I should have been very sorry to encounter him alone. There we sat, hour after hour, in Mrs. Bull's parlor, scarcely a word passing between us except on the subject of Latin or arithmetic. Mr. Summers was an excellent teacher; and it was worth my sojourn in Peppersville to learn what I did.
One evening, however, we were rather more sociable; and in answer to some remark of mine, Mr. Summers asked me where I supposed he was born!
Beginning with Maine, I went regularly through the Eastern States, with a strong desire to leave him in Massachusetts; but, very much to my surprise, he denied them all.
'New York, then, or New Jersey,' I persisted.
Mr. Summers only smiled; and then I tried the Hoosier States, where they are 'half horse and half alligator;' his figure was somewhat in the backwoodsman style. But none of these would do.
'Then,' said I, out of all patience, 'you could not have been born anywhere. I give it up.'
'Well,' was the reply, 'I think you might as well, for you would never guess.'
And here the matter ended. But frequently afterward did I find myself wondering what portion of the globe Mr. Summers could claim as his own, his native land; for I had come to the conclusion that he might not be an American at all.
Skating season arrived; and all Peppersville took to the lake like a colony of ducks. It was splendidly exhilarating, and my crotchet needle had for some time previous been flying through tangled mazes of crimson worsted, to the great admiration of the household, in the manufacture of a skating cap.
I must have been built expressly for going on ice, for it seemed like my native element. Those beautiful moonlight nights, with the cold blue sky above and the glittering crystal beneath, were like glimpses of fairyland. Mr. Summers taught me how to skate, for which I was sufficiently grateful; but I had no idea of being handed over to him exclusively for the benefit of Peppersville, so I seized upon 'big boys,' or staid, married men, or anything that came handy in the way of support, until I was sufficiently experienced to go alone.
Helen Legram did not skate. Nothing could induce her to venture; and probably, while we were cultivating our heels on the ice, she was cultivating her head in milder latitudes. I thought,then, that she was to be pitied; but, two weeks later, I would have given all that I possessed to have followed her example in the beginning.
It was intensely cold that night, and somehow my skates were very troublesome. Mr. Summers bent down to arrange them, and I declined making use of his shoulder as a support. I never knew how I did it, but ice is slippery; I performed an extraordinary slide—kicked Mr. Summers directly in the mouth, thereby knocking out one of his front teeth, as though I had been a vicious horse—and went backward into the arms of the oldest male pupil of the Peppersville Academy, while my unfortunate victim, knocked into a state of insensibility, fell prostrate on the ice.
A crowd gathered, of course, and raised their venerable preceptor, and brought him to his senses, while I was congratulated on my escape. I looked upon this as the most awkward predicament I had ever been placed in, and was completely nonplussed as to the course of action to be pursued under the circumstances. Had I been in love with Mr. Summers, or he with me, the case would have been different; as it was, I would have given much to have changed places with him. He declared, however, that it was nothing, laughed about the accident, and said that one tooth more or less made very little difference. Had he been a woman, he never would have forgiven me.
The next morning, Mr. Summers was not at school, and Helen Legram took his place. They boarded in the same house; and from her I learned that his mouth was so much swollen he could scarcely speak. It was very disagreeable, certainly; but, having weighed the matter all the morning, I came to the conclusion by afternoon, that it was decidedly my duty to go and see after Mr. Summers.
I found him in the parlor, considerably disfigured; and Helen Legram was making him some pap—that being the only style of sustenance upon which he could venture. His mouth was very sore, for the sharp runner of a skate is rather a formidable weapon; but he laughed with his eyes when I presented myself, and seemed to enjoy my embarrassment.
'I do not see how it happened,' said I, very much annoyed.
'All that I know of the case,' replied Mr. Summers, quite as though it had been somebody else's case, 'is that, while engaged in the discharge of my duty, a cloud of dimity suddenly floated before my eyes—a stunning shock ensued—I saw stars—and then exit into the region of know-nothingdom.'
Rather awkwardly, I suppose, I offered myself as head nurse, having been the cause of the mischief; but Mr. Summers, with many thanks for the offer, did not think there would be any necessity for availing himself of it. I felt very sorry for him, and quite as sorry for myself.
In a few days the principal returned to his school duties. He possessed a remarkable degree of reticence; and,owing to this blessed quality, no one but ourselves and Helen Legram ever knew of my share in that unfortunate accident. I felt rather guilty whenever allusion was made to it by some well-meaning person; but I noticed that Mr. Summers always turned the conversation as soon as possible. We were on more social terms after that disaster; and somehow the evenings spent over Latin and arithmetic became less practical, and decidedly more interesting. Mr. Summers, however, was very cautious, and so was I. He never seemed to be swayed by impulse; and I should have nipped anything like tenderness in the bud.
One evening, however, I was considerably astonished at him, and not a little indignant. The 'faculty' of the Peppersville Academy were invited to a small party at the house of one of its wealthiest patrons, who lived some miles out of town.
They sent a covered wagon for us, and a 'boy,' that indispensable article in the country, to drive us.
The boy seemed to drive with his eyes shut; suddenly, there was a terrific jolt, and I screamed and clung to Mr. Summers for protection. Under the circumstances this was unavoidable; but, as he seemed disposed to retain my hand, I tried to disengage it.
It was held in a firm grasp; and I said, in a tone that could not be mistaken: 'Mr. Summers!'
My hand was immediately released; and neither of us spoke another word during the drive.
I did not enjoy that party. I was angry at Mr. Summers, and I let him see it; but I had no patience with any other man in the room. In driving back, Mr. Summers 'thought that he would sit outside, to get a little fresh air,'—which, as the thermometer stood at twenty, must have been exhilarating. I was handed out in silence, and went to bed in as bad a humor as that in which many a belle comes from the ball room.
There was a coolness between us for several days, which gradually thawed into a more genial state of things, but it did not seem to me that it ever became quite as it was before.
All winter there were rumblings deep and continual in the political sky—sometimes the sun broke out, and people said that it was going to clear; but usually the weathercocks predicted a long, southerly storm. I never saw a man so full of prophecy as Mr. Bull. One would have supposed that every hour brought him telegraphic despatches both from the real and the spurious Congress; and that President Lincoln and Jeff. Davis were both convinced of their utter inability to take any steps without the cognizance and approval of Mr. Bull.
Mrs. Bull said mildly that 'she hoped it would blow over;' but Mr. Bull exclaimed indignantly that 'he didn't want it to blow over—he wanted it to blow out and done with it, if it was goin' to, and not keep a threatenin' all to no purpose. It was high time that things was settled, and people knew what was what. If we was goin' to hev a rumpus, he hoped we'dhevit.'
If the old man had not been really good-natured and inoffensive, I should have taken him in hand; but these disconnected remarks appeared to give him so much pleasure that it would have been cruel to deprive him of it.
Helen Legram had a reverential way of speaking of Mr. Summers that provoked me; but she told me one day, when I laughed at this, that no one who knew his life could do otherwise. And how didshe'know his life'? He had never disclosed it tome—and I could not see what there was in Helen Legram to entitle her to this confidence. They certainly were engaged—everything went to prove it; and, if I had been at all in love with Mr. Summers, I should have classed the feeling that pervaded me under the head of jealousy.
Mr. Bull 'guessed that Mr. Summersand that tall gal were goin' to make a match of it;' and, when I assented to the proposition, he added that 'she didn'tprettymuch, but he kalkilated she'd make a good, stirrin' wife for a young man who had his livin' to get. Should hev kind o' thought,' continued Mr. Bull, who seemed to love the subject, 'that he'd hev fanciedyou; but there's no accountin' for tastes.'
I glided out of the room unperceived, and the old gentleman probably talked confidentially to the four walls for some time afterward.
Sumter had fallen; and the whole school broke out in badges. Peppersville was on fire, and burning, of course, in red, white, and blue flames. No one bought a dress even that had not the loyal colors displayedsomewherein it; and a man who did not wear a cockade was rather looked askance upon.
Mr. Bull was in his element, and spent his time principally in going to the post office in search of news, and asking everybody's political shibboleth. The subject was discussed at every meal. Mr. Bull thought that half the members of Congress ought to have been hung long ago. Miss Friggs, who sometimes attempted the poetical, said that it made her heart bleed to think of the glorious figure of Liberty wandering desolate and forsaken, with her costly robe of stars and stripes trailing in the dust; and Mrs. Bull, who was one of the wisest women I ever knew, prudently said nothing on a subject which she did not quite understand.
The militia of Peppersville began to turn out in rusty regimentals, and cut up queer antics in the street; and Mr. Summers, who appeared to have a talent for everything, took them in hand to drill.
'Do you understand military tactics?' I inquired in surprise.
'Somewhat,' was the reply. He had been captain of a company of boy soldiers; and, now that I came to think of it, there was something decidedly military in his bearing.
'If I were only aman!' I exclaimed, discontentedly, 'I would be off to the war and distinguish myself; but a woman is good for nothing but to be insignificant.'
'The works of a watch are 'insignificant,' in one sense,' observed my companion; 'but what would the watch he without them?'
'I do not see any application in this case,' I replied, indifferently.
'A woman,' said he, bending down to adjust some papers, 'is often the Miriam and Aaron of some Moses whose hands need holding up. Many a bullet that finds the heart of an enemy is sent, not by the hand that pulls the trigger, but by a softer hand miles away. Something, or rather someone, to work for, is an incentive to great deeds.'
Mr. Summers's face was flushed; and he looked suddenly up when he had done speaking.
I withdrew my eyes in confusion, and, with the careless remark, 'Mrs. Partington would tell you that you were speaking paregorically,' I left a place that was getting entirely too hot to hold me.
A few days after, Mr. Summers started for the seat of war, with the commission of first lieutenant, and Helen Legram became principal of the Peppersville Academy. I think that bright spring days are disagreeable, glaring things, when some one whom you like and have been accustomed to see in certain places, is seen there no more; and the day that Mr. Summers left, I was out of all patience with the April sunshine.
He had said no more: a friendly pressure of the hand from him, and a sincerely expressed hope on my part that he would return unharmed—a request from Mr. Bull to 'give it to 'em well'—a caution from Mrs. Bull not to expose himself, if he could help it, to the night air—a pincushion from Miss Friggs, because men never have conveniences-and he was gone, with, no reasonable prospect of his return.
I said this to myself a great many times; but I also said that I did not go to Peppersville to fall in love with the principal of the Academy.
Those everlasting recitations began to be unendurable; the walks about Peppersville were totally uninteresting, and I did not know what to do with myself. I cultivated Helen Legram; and, during the vacation, she took me home with her to the farm.
It seemed like a new life, that three weeks' visit, and I enjoyed it extremely. We went on expeditions up the mountains, and lived a sort of vagrant life that was just what we both needed. The roar of cannon could not reach us there; the sight of bleeding, dying men was far away; and we almost forgot that the teeth of the children whom she had nourished at her breast were tugging at the vitals of the Union.
One afternoon, amid the fragrant odor of pine trees, Helen Legram told me the story of Mr. Summers's life.
He was born and educated in Florida, much to my astonishment, and had entailed upon him the misery of a worthless, dissipated father. His mother, after dragging out a saddened existence, sank into the grave when her youngest boy was just entering upon the years of boyhood. Finally, the elder Summers, who had always boasted of his patrician blood, killed a man in a fit of mingled passion and intemperance, and then cheated the gallows of its due by putting an end to his own life. His property was quite exhausted; and the two sons who survived him could only look upon his death as a release from continued mortification and disgrace. An uncle's house was open to receive them; but, before many years had elapsed, Arthur Summers, who was described as a miracle of manly beauty, changed his name for that of a rich heiress who bestowed herself and her lands upon him, and requested his brother to follow his example in the matter of the name at once, and in the matter of the heiress as soon as convenient.
Elihu Summers, however, persisted in retaining the name that his father had disgraced; he said that he would redeem it, and declared that no wife of his should furnish him with bread while his brain and hands were in working order. His brother looked upon him as a harmless lunatic; but Elihu was firm, and took up his abode at the North, as better calculated to further his design. After a series of adventures he became principal of the Peppersville Academy, with the view of ultimately studying a profession; and there he had been for two years when I came in contact with him.
I had been studying Helen Legram's face during this recital; and at its conclusion I asked her if she was engaged to Mr. Summers.
'No, I am not engaged to him,' she replied, with a vivid blush; 'I have good reason to suppose that he is attached to some one else.'
'Well,' thought I, as I noted the blush, 'if not engaged to him, you are certainly in love with him;' and I felt sorry for her if it was not returned.
I did not go back to Peppersville that summer—I had had enough of school teaching; and I returned to the relatives with whom I had become disgusted, on promises of better behavior from them for the future. They were notnearrelatives—I had none; and I had rebelled at being tutored and watched like a child. Having fully asserted my independence, I was treated with more respect; but, while they supposed that I was nestling down in quiet content, I was busily casting about in my mind the practicability of another venture.
I burned to do something for my country; I could not do as meek women did, and sit down and sew for it; the monotonous motion of the needle, which some people call so soothing, fairly distracted me; and, in spite of the low diet of Latin and mathematics on whichI had been kept all winter, I entertained vague visions of myself, in cropped hair and army blue, following the drum.
Just at this critical juncture, when common sense was spreading her pinions for flight, I received a letter from a darling Mentor of a friend, who was spending the golden sunshine of her life as her Saviour spent His, in doing good; and she ordered me to the hospitals.
'You have youth and health,' she wrote; 'spend them in the service of your country. Many a brave soldier lies stiffening in his gore on the bloody field of Manassas; many as brave are writhing in agony in the hospitals that received the wounded of that disastrous day; go among them with words of comfort, and smooth the pillow of those brave defenders whose blood has been freely poured out to enableyouto sleep in peace.'
I could wait no longer; in spite of protestation, I put my chattels in order, and was off with a noble band of women, who were all bent on the same errand.
I had heard nothing from Mr. Summers since his departure: he might have been killed at Manassas, or have fallen, side by side with the noble Winthrop, at Big Bethel, or have perished, as the lamented Ellsworth perished, by the hand of the assassin. I never expected to behold him again inthisworld; and I began to think that I had not appreciated him.
I cannot describe my life as hospital nurse: it was just passing from one scene of suffering to another; and I had not realized that therecouldbe so much misery in this bright, beautiful world. At first I used to tremble and faint; but finally the intense desire todosomething for these poor, mutilated wrecks of humanity conquered the weakness; and I even wondered at my own self-control.
There were pleasant gleams, too, in this life, of utter self-abandonment; blessings from fever-parched lips; grateful looks from dying eyes; pleased attention to holy words; and, wrapping all like a halo, the thought that I was working in very deed, ay, and battling, too, for the glorious flag that floated over my head.
They were constantly bringing in fresh patients, and the sight roused no curiosity; but one day, such a ghastly face was upturned to view, as they placed the shattered body tenderly on a cot, that, involuntarily, I bent closer.
'Awful things, those Minié wounds,' observed a young surgeon who stood near me; and then, as he went on to describe how the horrible ball revolves in the lacerated flesh, I suddenly caught a full view of the features, over which the shadow of death seemed to have settled, and fainted dead away.
It was a long time, I believe, before I regained my senses; but as soon as I did, I went to work. Mr. Summers was stretched before me on that cot, with a gaping wound in his shoulder, that had not been attended to in proper time. He opened his eyes once, and smiled, as he seemed to recognize me bending over him; but a fainting fit ensued, and then he became delirious.
I could not bear to have any one else attend to him, and I watched him faithfully day and night. That dreadful Minié wound seemed as if it never would heal, and I think that the doctors scarcely expected him to get up again. I almost felt as if I had been brought to the hospital for this one purpose; and without his ever having told me in plain words that he loved me—in spite of all my wise resolutions to the contrary—during silent watches beside that couch of suffering, I became convinced that I loved him with all the strength of which I was capable. Yes, I who had nominally devoted myself to the service of my country, had ignominiously closed my career by falling in love with the first good-looking patient that had been brought into my ward!
If any stupid man, though (a woman would know better), supposes that I informed Mr. Summers of this, either by word or look, in his first lucid moment, he is entirely mistaken. On the contrary to punish myself for this humiliating weakness, I was more severe than ever; and when the patient became well enough to thank me for my kind attention, etc., I told him, as coldly as I could, that it was no more than I would have done for the commonest soldier—(which was not strict truth)—that my labors were given to my country, and not to individuals—with much more to the same purpose.
Mr. Summers sighed deeply, and turned over on his pillow; and he did not imagine how I felt.
He said no more on the subject then; but, one evening, when he had been moved from his bed to an easy chair, he spoke out like a man, and a pretty determined one, too, in plain terms, and asked me if I would ever marry him?
In just as plain terms I told him that I never would—I had resolved to devote my life in this manner; and, with an expression of utter hopelessness, he replied that he took back all his thanks for the miserable life I had saved; he was weary of it, and would hasten to throw it away on the next battle field.
This was very dreadful, of course; but that winter's practice had given me quite a turn for arithmetic, and I fell to calculating how many battles would probably transpire before that crippled shoulder would let him take the field again.
'You will not get out under three months,' said I, confidently.
He looked at me for a moment; and then, bending closer, he whispered, 'You do not really mean it, Isabel?'
My face flushed uncomfortably at this address, but, making a last struggle, I inquired carelessly, 'And why not, pray?'
'Because,' he replied, with a steady voice, 'you have too kind a heart to consign to a disappointed life one who loves you so devotedly.'
I suppose I had; for, after that, he had the impudence to assure me that I was engaged to him.
'Providence seems to smile upon us,' observed my convalescing patient, the next morning; 'read this, Isabel.'
The formidable looking document was placed in my hand, and I learned that Lieutenant Elihu Summers, for gallant conduct at the battle of Bull Run, was promoted to the rank of colonel.
'Mrs. Colonel Summers,' said he, with the old mischief beaming in his eye; 'isn't that tempting?'
I immediately punished him by reading an article that happened to be on hand, which proved conclusively that army and navy officers were a worthless, dissipated set. Nevertheless, it was a satisfaction to think that my wish of entering the army was about to be gratified—although in such an unexpected way.
I could never definitely ascertain whether Helen Legram loved Mr. Summers or not; but I am under the impression that she did, and that she will never marry. She makes a splendid principal for the Peppersville Academy; and, when we have a house of our own, she will be the first invited guest.
I am afraid that I have no 'mission.' I spoiled my school teaching by falling in love with the principal, and my hospital nursing by becoming infatuated with my most troublesome patient. I do not feel disposed, therefore, to try another field.
To Atossa, a Persian queen, the daughter of Cyrus and the mother of Xerxes, has been ascribed the invention of letter writing. She, although a royal barbarian, was, like her prototype of Sheba, not only an admirer of wisdom in others, but wise herself. She first composed epistles. So testifies Hellanicus, a general historian of the ancient states, and so insists Tatian in his celebrated oration against the Greeks. In that oration he contends that none of the institutions of which the Greeks were so boastful had their origin with them, but were all invented by the barbarians.
It may be doubted, however, whether to any known person in the domains of olden time can be truly attributed the high honor of such an invention. Indeed, the views that may justly be entertained as to what constitutes an invention may be various and diverse. Perhaps, in a qualified sense, any signal addition or improvement deserves to be so distinguished. What was precisely the subject matter of Atossa's invention is not told, nor is anything recorded to lead to the conclusion that she invented any new material; but, if she discovered any way of committing the communications between persons, separated or at a distance from each other, to paper—whether composed of the interior bark of trees, or of the Egyptian papyrus, or other flexible substance—and making it into a roll or volume, to be sent by some carrier, that Persian queen may be accredited as the inventress of epistolary composition.
It has been conjectured that letter writing was an art existing in the days of Homer; because one of that great poet's characters, named Pretus, gives a folded tablet to another personage, Bellerophontes, to deliver to a third individual, Jobates. But the learned commentators, both German and English, agree in the fact that the Iliad and the Odyssey were never written, but recited to various audiences by
'The grand old bard of Scio's rocky isle.'
Writing, however, was in use throughout Greece before the time of Homer, if not in ordinary intercourse, certainly for memorials and inscriptions. The age of Homer may be regarded as preceding the Christian era by about one thousand years. It synchronizes with the time of Solomon. Thus the greatest of poets and the wisest of kings coexisted—truly a noticeable fact, a theme for the imagination.
But the Holy Scriptures afford instances of letter writing, in some form or other, at a period considerably anterior to the age of Solomon. David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of Uriah: 'And he wrote in the letter, saying.' (2 Samuel xi, 14, 15.) And, about one hundred and forty years afterward, Jezebel wrote letters in Ahab's name (1 Kings xxi, 8, 9), and 'sealed them with his seal, and sent the letters unto the elders and to the nobles that were in the city, dwelling with Naboth, and she wrote in the letters, saying, (2 Kings v, 5, 6, 7; 2 Kings x, 1, 2, 6, 7.) The king of Syria wrote a letter to the king of Israel, and therewith sent Naaman, his servant, to be cured of his leprosy: 'And it came to pass when the king of Israel read the letter, that he rent his clothes.'
Now this occurred about nine hundred years before the Christian era; and, about twenty years later, we are told that Jehu wrote letters and sent them to Samaria. A second time he transmitted other letters of a similar import, which were cruelly obeyed.
Then there is the threatening letter of the king of Assyria to Hezekiah, set forth in the second book of Kings, andalso the complimentary letter from Berodach-Baladan to the same king of Judah after his sickness; a king who subsequently appears himself to have written letters to the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, to summon them to Jerusalem. (2 Kings xix, 14; xx, 12; 2 Chron. xxx, 1-6.)
Cyrus, after publishing his decree giving liberty to the Jews to return to their own country and rebuild the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, wrote letters recommendatory to the governors of several provinces to assist the Jews in their undertaking; one of which letters Josephus has recorded as being addressed to the governors of Syria, and commencing with the regular epistolary salutation, 'Cyrus, the king, to Sysina and Sarabasan sendeth a greeting.' And while the children of the captivity were rebuilding their temple (and this was five hundred and twenty-two years before Christ), there was a frequent correspondence by letters between, their adversaries and Artaxerxes, king of Persia. Now, supposing the invention, in any modified sense, of letter writingon paper, or what may answer to the idea conveyed by that term, is in any measure attributable to the daughter of Cyrus, this was quite a matter of course and in accordance with the general practice.
Still, let us not be disposed to take away from the royal lady the honor of having invented an art which her sex have, in modern years, carried to a perfection scarcely attainable by the male sex; for it may be set down as an axiom that one woman's letter is worth a dozen letters by men.
After all, the instances of communication by means of letter writing to which allusions have thus been made are plainly no specimens of that use of the invention which constitutes it the medium of free thought and intelligence, or even the simple vehicle of domestic intercourse. Those letters or missives were either formal announcements of authoritative mandates and despatches, or, at best, only the conveyancers of certain information, to be the motive to some act or understanding, or to determine or direct some course of proceeding. There are no examples of what can properly be calledfamiliar lettersbefore the time of Cicero, whose correspondence may justly be regarded as among the most precious remains of ancient literature which have survived to our own day. In connection with this remark, we may be permitted to observe that, as with the greatest of ancient, so with the greatest of modern orators, he was distinguished for the beauty, power, and brilliancy of his letters. There are few instances of English style more charming in themselves than the epistles, whether published or still in manuscript, written by that versatile and wonderful person, Daniel Webster. (Nunquam tetigit quod non ornavit.) How copious is their expression! How facile and felicitous their illustrations! What grace! What beauty of diction! What simplicity, elevated by a matchless elegance! Nothing more clearly proves the various talents of both the Roman and the American statesman than that they should no more have excelled in their forensic achievements on grand occasions than in those common and trivial affairs of every-day life, so unaffected and so effortless as the writing of letters to their friends.
All the letters of Greek and Roman origin which have come down to us seem to be doubtful, except those of Plato and Isocrates, until the days of Cicero. Under his genius the mind of the Roman nation took a sudden spring, and the polite literature of the world was embellished by epistolary composition. As the rules and illustrations of poetic writing were borrowed by Aristotle from the example of Homer, so the practice and authority of Cicero appear to have furnished precepts best entitled to determine the character and merits of the epistolary style. He esteemed it as a species ofcomposition enjoying the privilege of great ease and familiarity, as well in its diction as in its treatment of its subject, and also in its employment of the weapons of wit and humor. The general style most suitable to its spirit and character he considered to be that most in use in the ordinary and daily intercourse of society. He admired a simple and playful use of language, and he affected, as he asserts, a common and almost plebeian manner of writing, using words of every-day stamp in his correspondence. In his view of letter writing, its style and manner ought to vary with the complexion of its subject matter, and be subjected to no abstract system of rules. Ho propounds three principal kinds of epistles: first, that which merely conveys interesting intelligence, being, as he says, the very object for which the thing itself came into existence; second, the jocose letter; third, the serious and solemn letter. And it was besides the opinion of the great orator—an opinion sanctioned and ratified by all honorable persons then and in our own day—that there is something sacred in the contents of a letter which gives it the strongest claims to be withheld from third persons. 'For who,' he exclaims, in his second Philippic, 'who that is at all influenced by good habits and feelings, has ever allowed himself to resent an affront or injury by exposing to others any letters received from the offending persons during their intercourse of friendship?' 'What else,' he eloquently exclaims, 'would be the tendency of such conduct but to rob the very life of life of its social charms! How many pleasantries find their way into letters, as amusing to the correspondents as they are insipid to others; and how many subjects of serious interest, which are entirely unfit to be brought before the public!'
Truly is it gratifying, in our treatment of this topic, to be able to adduce such high, classical authority concerning the sacred and inviolable character of all private correspondence. In our humble view, not only is the seal of a letter a lock more impregnable to the hand of honor than the strongest bank safe which the expert Mr. Hobbs might vainly have tried to open; but even when that seal has already been rightfully broken and the contents of the letter exposed, those contents are to the eye of delicacy as unreadable as if written in thatBasslanguage which Adam and Eve are said to have spoken while in the garden of Eden, and which, since the fall, none but angels have ever been able to comprehend. Now, if Cicero thought it base for a third party to read a private letter, what eloquent thunder would he not have hurled at the head of that wretch who not only read, but printed and published it! There is an epithet, which, in certain parts of New England, the folks apply to the poorest of poor scamps—'mean.' Now who, in this round world, of all that dwell therein, can be found one half so 'mean' as the betrayer and revealer of another's secrets? A whip should be placed in every honest hand to lash the rascal naked through the world. He should be fastened in an air-tight mail bag, and sent jolting and bouncing, amid innumerable letters and packages and ponderous franked documents of members of Congress, over all the roughest roads of our Northwestern country!
To return to what a letter should be. It seems, upon the whole, to have been Cicero's opinion—and in this we shall fain agree as well as in his view of the secrecy of letters—that, whether the subject be solemn or familiar, learned or colloquial, general or particular, political or domestic, an easy, vivacious, unaffected diction gives to epistolary writing its proper grace and perfection.
In very truth, good letter writing is little else than conversation upon paper, carried on between parties personally separate, with this especial advantage, that it brings the minds of the interlocutors into reciprocal action, with moreroom for reflection, and with, fewer disturbances than can usually consist with personal conversation.
We have thus made mention of Cicero as the greatest of authorities with regard to this subject, because he was himself the greatest of letter writers. The epistle was the shape in which his versatile and beautiful mind most gracefully ran and moulded itself. His fluctuating and unstable character no less than his vanity and love of distinction, seemed to minister occasion to those varied forms of diction and expression in which the genius of animated letter writing may be said to delight. Read his 'Familiar Letters,' if not in Latin, yet in translation, if you wish to study the most perfect specimens of this style—a style which has not been equalled or approached since his day.
Next to the letters of the great Roman orator, merit points to those of the philosopher Seneca. He, too, cultivates and enjoins an easy and unstudied diction. So great is the excellence of his letters; so nearly is their beauty allied to the beauty of our Holy Scriptures; so does he seem to anticipate the morals and teachings of our Christian dispensation, that it is almost reprehensible to speak of them at all, without setting forth their extraordinary charms of style and thought, even in a larger space than the present article can be allowed to occupy.
After Seneca, the next most noted of the ancient letter writers was Pliny the younger. And now we are brought down to the days of the Apostles and their Epistles. With a simple reverential allusion to the letters of St. Paul and the other immediate followers of our Lord, letters that teach men the way of salvation—we pass to a more modern consideration of our topic.
Letters can hardly be classified. They are of various sorts. Most of them, as schoolboys say, end in t-i-o-n,tion. There are Letters of Introduction; Letters of Congratulation; Letters of Consolation; Letters of Invitation; Letters of Recommendation; Letters of Administration. There are, moreover, letters of friendship, business letters, letters of diplomacy, letters of credit, letters patent, letters of marque (apt also to be letters of mark), and love letters—the last being by no means least.
Let not the gentle reader imagine from this enumeration than we are going to be so tedious as to divide the remainder of this article into heads, and to treat of each one of these kinds of letters in its turn. No; our object is, by indicating thus the number of sorts, to elucidate the importance of letters, and to prove that, if their writing be not, like that of poetry, ranked among the fine arts, it well deserves to be. For what more admirable accomplishment can there be—what is of more importance often than the proper composing of letters? Many a reputation is made or marred by a single epistle. Great consequences follow in the train of a single epistle. The pen is mightier than the sword. How well may our readers remember one brief letter of Henry Clay (clarum et venerabile nomen!), who, when a candidate for the Presidency, wrote many excellent letters, and too many—so many, indeed, that his adversaries indulged in pointless ridicule, and called him 'The Complete Letter Writer.' We allude, of course, to that brief letter to certain importunate individuals in Alabama, which lost for him the decisive and final vote of New York, and made Mr. Polk President—its consequences being the war with Mexico, the acquisition and annexation of California, the discovery of the gold mines—working an utter change in the political and commercial fortunes of the world, which would probably never have taken place, or, at least, not in our century, but for that one brief Alabama letter! It is, we believe, fully conceded that the safest rule for becoming Chief Magistrate of our country is never to write a letter.
Many a man and woman, who has written a letter and posted it, wishes ardently that it could be recalled; and many a one who has something disagreeable to say, and is obliged to say it in a letter because he has promised to write, wishes that he could send the letter in blank—like Larry O'Branigan to his wife Judy, when he was constrained to inform her that he had been dismissed from his place, thus done into verse by the bard of Erin:
'As it was but last week that I sent you a letter,You'll wonder, dear Judy, what this is about,And, troth, it's a letter myself would like better,Could I manage to leave the contents of it out.'
Excellent, by the way, as this Hibernicism is, it is not so perfect as the following, which it would be difficult for the most accomplished of Paddies to surpass. A man, dying, wrote an epistle, in which, stating that he was near death, he took an affectionate farewell of his friends. He left the letter open on a table near him, and expired before he had time to complete it. His attendant, just after his demise, taking up the defunct's pen, in which the ink was scarcely yet dry, added, by way of postcript, or ratherpost-mortem-script: 'Since writing the foregoing, I have died.'
There is more philosophy than one would at first imagine in the apology of him who said that his pen was so bad it could not spell correctly. To write a letter as it should be in all respects, to be what it ought to be, orthographically, grammatically, rhetorically right, there should be a good pen, good paper, good ink. Many a pleasant correspondence has been marred by want of these adjuncts; many an agreeable thought arrested; many a composition, happily begun, hurried to an abrupt conclusion. And how many delightful letters have been omitted or neglected to be written by their want! We are not jesting. These concomitants, together with nice envelopes, are as requisite to a respectable epistle as becoming costume is to a lady. When we see a scrawling hand on coarse paper, ill folded, worse directed, and ending, 'Yours in haste,' we think but little of the writer. Such a one may complain of being in a hurry, but ladies and gentlemen should always take time to do well whatsoever they do at all. No letters should be written 'in haste' except angry ones, and the faster they are 'committed to paper' the better. We have found it a capital plan, when in hot wrath, to sit directly down and scratch off a furious letter, and then, having thus committed our ire to the paper, to commit that to the flames. The process is highly refrigerant, in any state of the weather.
Nothing can be more false than the phraseology of most letters. Many a letter is commenced with 'dear,' when the writer, if he dared express his real sentiment, would use a very opposite word. But, be the sentiments of a letter what they may, true or false, real or affected, it is the desire of the present writer to insist upon the indispensable neatness of letters—that they should be externally faultless, however defective inside. We regret to record the unpleasant fact that our American ladies seldom write good hands, whereas a fair chirography is properly considered as among the very first accomplishments for a well-educated girl in England. Who ever saw a letter from a true English lady that was not faultless in its details? What nice, legible penmanship! How happily expressed! How trim and pretty a cover! How beautiful and classic a seal! Very different these from the concomitants of half a sheet of ruled paper, scrawled over as if chickens had been walking upon it, and folded slopingly, and held loosely together by a wafer!
It is an affectation of many lawyersand most literary people to write ill, probably to create an impression that such is the vast importance of their occupations and lucubrations that they have not time to attend to so minor a matter as penmanship. A certain highly distinguished counsellor of Massachusetts was said to have written so badly that he could not comprehend his own legal opinions after he had put them on paper. Now such affectation is in very poor taste. Those who cannot write fairly and legibly had better go to school and practise until they can. Incomprehensible writing is as bad as incomprehensible speaking. A clear enunciation is scarcely more important than a plain hand. A lawyer, in speaking, may as well jumble his words so together that not one in fifty can be understood, as in writing to scrawl and run them about so that not one in fifty can be read.
What a world of content or of unhappiness lies within the little fold of a letter! Hark! There is the postman's ring at the door, sharp, quick, imperative; as much as to say, 'Don't, keep me standing here; I'm in a hurry.' How your heart beats! It has come at length—the long-expected letter; an answer to a proposal of marriage, perhaps; a reply to an urgent inquiry concerning a matter of business; information with regard to some near and dear relative; a bulletin from the field of battle; what the heart sighs for, hopes for—fears, yet welcomes—desires, yet dreads. You seize the letter. Has it a black seal? Yes? The blood leaves your cheeks and rushes to its citadel, frozen with fear, and in your ear sounds the knell of a departed joy. No? Then you heave a long sigh of relief, and gaze for a moment at the missive, wondering from whom it can be. Your doubts are soon resolved, and you rest satisfied or you are disappointed. Recall the emotions which you have experienced in opening and reading many a letter, and you will acknowledge that fate and fortune often announce their happiest or sternest decrees through a little sheet of folded paper. Have you not thought so, wife, when came the long looked-for, long hoped-for, long prayed-for—with so many sighs and tears, such throbbing, and such sinking of the heart—letter from your husband, telling the fruition of his schemes, and the prospect of his speedy return? Have you not thought so, mother, when your son's letter came, assuring you that your early teachings had been blessed to him; and, though perchance surrounded by the temptations of a great city or a great camp, he had found that 'peace which passeth understanding?' Have you not thought so, O happy damsel—yes! that blush tells how deeply—whenhisletter came at last, that letter which told you you were beloved, and that all his future felicity depended upon your reply? And that soft reply—how covered with kisses, how worn in that pocket of the coat in which it can feel the beatings of the precordial region! And not of you alone, ye refined and accomplished lovers—but of swains and sweethearts are the letters dear. Nothing more prized than such epistles, commencing with: 'This comes to inform you that I am well, saving a bad cold, and hope you enjoy the same blessing,' and ending:
'My pen is poor, my ink is pale,My love for you shall never fail.'
Assuredly, if there can be unalloyed happiness in this world, it appertains to those dear and distant friends, parted from one another by intervening ocean or continent, at those moments of mental communion which are vouchsafed by long and loving letters. Ah, how would the bands of friendship weaken and drop apart if it were not for them! They brighten the links of our social affections; they freshen the verdure of kind thoughts; they are like the morning dew and the evening rain to filial, conjugal, fraternal, paternal and parental love!
Let us now pass on to say something concerning those different kinds of letters that we named. Letters of diplomacy are affairs in which words are used for the purpose of concealing or obscuring the author's meaning, and which always conclude: 'Yours, with distinguished consideration.' To this species of epistle, the 'non-committal style,' of which the late Martin Van Buren was reputed to be a perfect master, is best adapted. Diplomatists seldom desire to be comprehended; but occasionally, when they do, how luminously plain they can be! Witness that celebrated letter which Mr. Webster dictated to Edward Everett, and the latter put on paper to be sent to Austria's minister, the Chevalier Hulsemann. The 'distinguished consideration' of that discomfited official was exercised to an unpleasant extent; and the result is that Austria has ceased to instruct this republic.
Nothing is more difficult to compose than a letter of consolation or condolence. The more earnestly you desire to express sympathy and impart solace, the more impossible it seems to find gentle and appropriate terms. You would shun commonplaces and avoid sermonizing. You wish to say something simple, kind, soothing. And yet the reflection of how far short of the exigencies of the grief you would mitigate, fails your best and most effectual efforts, oppresses and restrains your pen.
Of letters of business, it is quite well to say as little as they say themselves: 'Yours received; contents noted. Yours, &c.' As brevity is the soul of wit, so is it the soul of a business letter—the argument of which should bead rem, to the matter;cum punctu, with point.
Letters of invitation and congratulation are often mere formalities, although there is a way of infusing kindness, courtesy, and sincerity into them, especially into the latter, which ought at least to seem to be in cordial earnest.
Letters of introduction and recommendation are very difficult to write, because most people endeavor to give an original turn to their expressions. After all, it is judicious, in the composition of such affairs, to follow the briefest and most usual formulas, unless, indeed, you desire to introduce and recommend some particular person in downright reality, and then the farther you deviate from mere customary expressions the better. And if you are truly in earnest, you need be at no loss what to say: the words will suggest themselves.
Letters of friendship may be divided into two sorts—real and pretended. A real letter of friendship commends itself directly to the heart. There is a warm, genial glow about it, as welcome as the blaze of a hickory or sea-coal fire to one coming in from the cold, bitter breeze of a December night. It makes one philanthropic and a believer in human goodness. What cheer—what ardent cheer is there in a letter unexpectedly received from an old friend between whom and one's self roll years of absence, or stretch lands and seas of distance! It is like a boon from the very heaven of memory. But a pretended letter of friendship—how easily detected! how transparent its falsity! The loadstone of love touches it, and finds it mere brass. Its influence is icy and bleak, like the rays of the moon, from which all the lenses on earth cannot extract one particle of heat.
And what can be said of love letters—those flowers of feeling, those redundant roses of recapitulation? There is one strain running through their first parts, and then—da capo. They are the same thing, over and over and over again, and then—repeat. Yet are they never wearisome to those who write or to those who acceptably receive. They are like the interviews of their writers, excessively stupid to everybody else, but exquisitely charming to themselves; that is,reallove letters; not those absurd things—amusing from their veryabsurdity—which novelists palm off upon innocent readers as the correspondence of heroes and heroines. Verily is there a distinction between letters written by lovers and love letters. The former may be deeply interesting to uninterested readers, while the latter are the very quintessence of egotistical selfishness; for, indeed, lovers may sometimes write about other matters besides love, as, for example, in the famous epistles of Abelard and Héloïse.
'Heaven first taught letters for some wretch's aid,Some banish'd lover or some captive maid;They live, they breathe, they speak what love inspires,Warm from the soul, and faithful to its fires;The virgin's wish without her fears impart,Excuse the blush, and pour out all the heart;Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul,And waft a sigh from Indus to the pole.'
About the other kinds of letters which have been enumerated, we shall have nothing to say; because they are letters rather in name than in reality.
The fashion prevalent in modern days, to publish on the demise of an author pretty much all his private correspondence, proves the general interest which is felt in mere letters. Many of these are utterly worthless, vastly inferior to those which constantly pass between friends on the topics of the hour or their own affairs. It is charitable to conjecture that their writers never imagined that they could be exposed in print, or would not be burned as soon as read. And yet, with what avidity are they conned and discussed! Look at the letters of Lord Byron, Moore, and Campbell. How much brainless twattle do they contain, amid a few grains of wit and humor. What mere commonplace! Editors may as well publish every word a man says, as what he writes familiarly in his dressing gown and slippers. We have not a doubt that by far the best letters ever written still remain unpublished. There are many printed volumes of travels very inferior to those which could be made up from the letters of private persons abroad, composed purely for the delectation of friends. There is hardly anything so difficult in writing as to write with ease. They who write letters on purpose to be published, feel and show a constraint which a mere private correspondent never entertains nor exhibits.
The war in which we are engaged has brought forth whole hosts of correspondents. They come not single spies, but in battalions. None of these letters, so far as we have read, can boast of any striking or peculiar excellence. Their great fault is their immense prolixity. Their words far outnumber their facts. An editor having once complained to a writer of the inordinate length of his composition, the writer replied that he had not had time to make itshorter. This is doubtless the trouble with our army letter writers. They are forced to writecurrente calamo—sometimes on the heads of drums, and not unfrequently are such epistles as full of sound and fury and as empty as the things on which they are written. The best of these correspondents so far is the somewhat ignominious Mr. Russell, of the LondonTimes; the only one, indeed, who has achieved a reputation. Mr. Charles Mackay, his successor (heu! quantum mutatus ab illo), writes letters that are poorer, if possible, than his poems; he has just sufficient imagination to be indebted to it for his facts. As for his opinions, he seems to gather them, like a ragpicker, from political stews, reeking with the filth of treason and foul with the garbage of secession.
So far asliterarymerit goes, we regret to give our verdict in favor of correspondents for the Southern journals. They write with greater facility, greater elegance, and greater force than our own too voluminous reporters. But, as much as they have figured, it is not probable that they will live in print. They are like exhalations over a battle field—touched briefly by the hues of sunlight, then fading, rolling off, and vanishing in the distance.
Of all the methods of acquiring a good English style, there is no practice so beneficial as that of frequent and familiar letter writing. Because your object in writing to a friend is to make yourself perfectly clear to him, therefore you make use of the simplest, plainest, readiest words—and such are ever the best for an essay, sermon, lecture, or even oration. This practice imparts ease and perspicuity, and it teaches that writing ought to be and may be as little difficult as conversation. It teaches every one not to say anything till he shall have something to say. A want of something to say is generally not felt in writing letters, especially by ladies; but it would seem to be a great pity that there are so many words in our language; for, whenever one desires to say anything, three or four ways of saying it run in one's head together, and it is hard to choose the best! It is quite as puzzling to a lady as the choice of a ribbon or a—husband. But let us earnestly advise all fair letter writers to lessen their perplexity by restricting themselves to words of home manufacture. They may perhaps think it looks prettily to garnish their correspondence with such phrases asde tout mon cœur. Now,with all my heartis really better English; the only advantage on the side of the former expression is that it is far less sincere. French silks and French laces may be superior, but it is much better to make use of the English language. Whenever there is any doubt between two words or expressions, choose the plainest, the commonest, the most idiomatic. Let ladies eschew fine phrases as they wouldrouge; let them love simple words as they do native roses on their cheeks. A true lady should be emulous to deserve that praise which the old poet Chaucer bestows on his Virginia:
'Though she were wise as Pallas, dare I sainHer faconde eke full womanly and plain,No contrefeted terms hadde sheTo semen wise; but after her degreeShe spake; and all her wordes more or lessSounding in virtue and in gentilesse.'
Exquisite examples of this pure, mother English are to be found in the speeches put by Shakspeare into the mouths of his female characters.
'No fountain from its rocky caveE'er tripped with foot more free;'
never were its waters clearer, more translucent, or more musical. This is indeed the peculiar beauty of a feminine style—choice and elegant words, but such as are familiar in well-bred conversation; words, not used scientifically, but according to their customary signification. It is from being guided wholly by usage, undisturbed by extraneous considerations, and from their characteristic fineness of discernment with regard to what is fit and appropriate, as well as from their being much less influenced by the vanity of fine writing, that sensible, educated women have a grace of style so rarely attainable by men. What are called the graces of composition are often its blemishes. There is no better test of beauties or defects of style than to judge them by the standard of letter writing. An expression, a phrase, a figure of speech, thought to be very splendid in itself, would often appear perfectly ridiculous if introduced in a letter. The rule of the cynic is a pretty good one, after all:In writing, when you think you have done something particularly brilliant, strike it out.
We are pretty well persuaded that authors are but poor judges of their own productions. They pride themselves on what they did with most labor. It is not good praise of any work to say that it is 'elaborate.' An author's letters are not apt to be labored, 'to smell of the lamp;' and they are, therefore, in general, his best specimens. In letter writing there will be found a facility, a freedom from constraint, asimplicity, and a directness, which are the capital traits of a good style. Of Shakspeare it is said, in the preface to the first edition of his works: 'His mind and hand went together, and what he thought he uttered with that easiness, that we have scarce received from him a blot in his papers.' Shakspeare did not, therefore,
'Write with fury, and correct with phlegm;'
but he wrote straightforwardly and naturally, as they do who assiduously practise letter writing.