us_ I should say) to go poring into Greek
contractions, and star-gazing upon slim Hebrew points. We have yet the
sight

Of sun, and moon, and star, throughout the year,
And man and woman.

You have vision enough to discern Mrs. Dyer from the other comely
gentlewoman who lives up at staircase No. 5; or, if you should make a
blunder in the twilight, Mrs. Dyer has too much good sense to be jealous
for a mere effect of imperfect optics. But don't try to write the Lord's
Prayer, Creed, and Ten Commandments, in the compass of a halfpenny; nor
run after a midge or a mote to catch it; and leave off hunting for
needles in bushels of hay, for all these things strain the eyes. The
snow is six feet deep in some parts here. I must put on jack-boots to
get at the post-office with this. It is not good for weak eyes to pore
upon snow too much. It lies in drifts. I wonder what its drift is; only
that it makes good pancakes, remind Mrs. Dyer. It turns a pretty green
world into a white one. It glares too much for an innocent colour,
methinks. I wonder why you think I dislike gilt edges. They set off a
letter marvellously. Yours, for instance, looks for all the world like a
tablet of curious _hieroglyphics_ in a gold frame. But don't go and lay
this to your eyes. You always wrote hieroglyphically, yet not to come up
to the mystical notations and conjuring characters of Dr. Parr. You
never wrote what I call a schoolmaster's hand, like Clarke; nor a
woman's hand, like Southey; nor a missal hand, like Porson; nor an
all-of-the-wrong-side-sloping hand, like Miss Hayes; nor a dogmatic,
Mede-and-Persian, peremptory hand, like Rickman; but you ever wrote what
I call a Grecian's hand; what the Grecians write (or used) at Christ's
Hospital; such as Whalley would have admired, and Boyer have applauded,
but Smith or Atwood (writing-masters) would have horsed you for. Your
boy-of-genius hand and your mercantile hand are various. By your
flourishes, I should think you never learned to make eagles or
corkscrews, or flourish the governors' names in the writing-school; and
by the tenor and cut of your letters I suspect you were never in it at
all. By the length of this scrawl you will think I have a design upon
your optics; but I have writ as large as I could out of respect to
them--too large, indeed, for beauty. Mine is a sort of deputy Grecian's
hand; a little better, and more of a worldly hand, than a Grecian's, but
still remote from