he expression of every sentiment, the choice of every
word, however random it may seem, is determined for the born enditer
of epistles by a sense of fitness so exquisite that its niceties of
distinction escape analysis and only its more general principles can
be enunciated.

The most vital of these principles is pretty generally observed.
Thackeray perceives it when at the close of a delightful letter to
Mrs. Brookfield he exclaims, "Why, this is almost as good as talk!" He
was right: it was written talk. If read aloud with pauses for the
correspondent's reply, the perfect letter would make perfect
conversation. It should call up the voice, gesture, and bearing of the
writer. Though it may be more studied than oral speech, it must appear
no less impromptu. This, indeed, is its essential charm, that it
contains the mind's first fruits with the bloom on, that it exhale
carelessly the mixed fragrance of the spirit like a handful of wild
flowers not sorted for the parlor table but, as gathered among the
fields, haphazard, with here a violet, there a spice of mint, a
strawberry blossom from the hillside, and a sprig of bittersweet. This
is the opportunity for the clergyman to show that he is not all
theologian, but part naturalist; the farmer that he is not all
ploughman, but part philosopher. This is the place for little buds of
sentiment, short flights of poetry, wise sermons all in three lines,
odd conceits, small jests rubbing noses with deacon-browed moralities;
in short, for every fine extravagance in which the mind at play
delights. Sickness and sorrow, too, and death, if spoken of reverently
and bravely, must not be denied a place. So we shall have a letter now
all grave, now all gay, but generally, if it be a good letter, part
grave, part gay, just as the mingled threads are clipped from the webs
of life.

That such a letter cannot be written with white gloves goes without
saying. The first requisite is freedom from stiffness. The realm of
good letters is a republic in which no man need lift his hat to
another. It is hail-fellow well met, or not met at all. So when the
humble address their superiors, or when children write to austere
grandfathers, they suffer from an awkwardness of mental attitude which
is the paralysis of all spontaneity. Before the indispensable ease can
exist, certain relations of equality must be established. But there
are some whose fountains of speech, in letters as in conversation, lie
for