to permit
her to see an unpublished address, as she had heard that it dealt
with the subject of her graduation paper, and hoped it might give
her some points. It is hard to believe that the timidity natural to
youth--or which we used to think natural to youth--could be so easily
overcome; or that the routine of school work, which makes for honest
if inefficient acquirements, could leave a student still begging or
borrowing her way.

We must in justice admit, however, that the unknown correspondent
is as ready to volunteer assistance as to demand it. He is ingenious
in criticism, and fertile in suggestions. He has inspirations in the
way of plots and topics,--like that amiable baronet, Sir John
Sinclair, who wanted Scott to write a poem on the adventures and
intrigues of a Caithness mermaiden, and who proffered him, by way
of inducement, "all the information I possess." The correspondent's
tone, when writing to humbler drudges in the field, is kind and
patronizing. He admits that he likes your books, or at least--here
is a veiled reproach--that he "has liked the earlier ones"; he
assumes, unwarrantably, that you are familiar with his favourite
authors; and he believes that it would be for you "an interesting
and congenial task" to trace the "curious connection" between
American fiction and the stock exchange. Sometimes, with thinly
veiled sarcasm, he demands that you should "enlighten his dulness,"
and say _why_ you gave your book its title. If he cannot find a French
word you have used in his "excellent dictionary," he thinks it worth
while to write and tell you so. He fears you do not "wholly understand
or appreciate the minor poets of your native land"; and he protests,
more in sorrow than in anger, against certain innocent phrases with
which you have disfigured "your otherwise graceful pages."

Now it must be an impulse not easily resisted which prompts people
to this gratuitous expression of their opinions. They take a world
of trouble which they could so easily escape; they deem it their
privilege to break down the barriers which civilization has taught
us to respect; and if they ever find themselves repaid, it is
assuredly by something remote from the gratitude of their
correspondents. Take, for example, the case of Mr. Peter Bayne,
journalist, and biographer of Martin Luther, who wrote to
Tennyson,--with whom he was unacquainted,--protesting earnestly
against a line in "Lady Clare":--

"'If I'm a beggar