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 lawyers and 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 repl