ures for writing them letters
without previous acquaintance, without excuse of introduction, and on
the most flimsy pretexts of occasion. The present writer once received
from Australia a long list of queries on a book of his--most if not all
of which could have been answered from the ordinary reference-bookshelf
in the writing-room of such a club as that--never mind whether it was in
Sydney or Melbourne or Adelaide--from which the querist dated his
epistle. Indeed, on another occasion somebody demanded a catalogue of
"the important references to the medical profession in French
literature"! This tendency of humanity sometimes exercises and magnifies
itself into really remarkable correspondences. There is perhaps none
such in English quite to match those _Lettres a une Inconnue_ which
(after standing the brunt of not a little unfavourable criticism,
provoked not so much by their contents as by the personal, political,
and above all religious or anti-religious idiosyncrasy of their author,
Prosper Merimee) have taken their place, for good and all, among the
classics of the art. Our most curious example perhaps is to be found in
the _Letters of the Duke of Wellington to Miss J._, the genuineness of
which has been a matter of some controversy, but which are rather more
inexplicable as forgeries than as authentic documents. Authors, from
Richardson onwards, have been the special targets of such
correspondents: and romance reports some, perhaps even history might
accept a few, instances of the closest relations resulting. On the other
hand, one of the very best of Miss Edgeworth's too much neglected
stories, "L'Amie Inconnue" not only may be useful as a warning to the
too open-hearted but has probably had not a few parallels in fact.
Generally, of course, the uninvited correspondent is merely a passing
phenomenon--rarely perhaps welcome except to persons of very much
self-centred temperament with a good deal of time on their hands;
tolerated and choked off placably by the good-natured and well-mannered;
answered snappishly or not answered at all by moroser victims.

[Sidenote: LOVE LETTERS]

There is yet a kind of letter, fictitious or real examples whereof are
not usually given in books which (as the Articles say of the Apocrypha)
are to be read "for example of life and instruction of manners," though
it is in a way the most interesting of all; and that is the love-letter.
It is, however, so varied in kind and not so very