y to an
urgent inquiry concerning a matter of business; information with regard
to some near and dear relative; a bulletin from the field of battle;
what the heart sighs for, hopes for--fears, yet welcomes--desires, yet
dreads. You seize the letter. Has it a black seal? Yes? The blood leaves
your cheeks and rushes to its citadel, frozen with fear, and in your ear
sounds the knell of a departed joy. No? Then you heave a long sigh of
relief, and gaze for a moment at the missive, wondering from whom it can
be. Your doubts are soon resolved, and you rest satisfied or you are
disappointed. Recall the emotions which you have experienced in opening
and reading many a letter, and you will acknowledge that fate and
fortune often announce their happiest or sternest decrees through a
little sheet of folded paper. Have you not thought so, wife, when came
the long looked-for, long hoped-for, long prayed-for--with so many sighs
and tears, such throbbing, and such sinking of the heart--letter from
your husband, telling the fruition of his schemes, and the prospect of
his speedy return? Have you not thought so, mother, when your son's
letter came, assuring you that your early teachings had been blessed to
him; and, though perchance surrounded by the temptations of a great city
or a great camp, he had found that 'peace which passeth understanding?'
Have you not thought so, O happy damsel--yes! that blush tells how
deeply--when _his_ letter came at last, that letter which told you you
were beloved, and that all his future felicity depended upon your reply?
And that soft reply--how covered with kisses, how worn in that pocket of
the coat in which it can feel the beatings of the precordial region! And
not of you alone, ye refined and accomplished lovers--but of swains and
sweethearts are the letters dear. Nothing more prized than such
epistles, commencing with: 'This comes to inform you that I am well,
saving a bad cold, and hope you enjoy the same blessing,' and ending:

'My pen is poor, my ink is pale,
My love for you shall never fail.'

Assuredly, if there can be unalloyed happiness in this world, it
appertains to those dear and distant friends, parted from one another by
intervening ocean or continent, at those moments of mental communion
which are vouchsafed by long and loving letters. Ah, how would the bands
of friendship weaken and drop apart if it were not for them! They
brighten the links of our social affections; they freshe