.

Note, again, the superabundant playfulness of Cowper in one of his
epistles to Lady Hesketh, where, after a few lines of personal
description, he appears to conclude, but returns to the topic with a

'P.S.--That the view I give you of myself may be complete I add the
following items: That I am in debt to nobody, and that I grow fat.'

Sometimes there will be pathos in a postscript, as in the case of
Beethoven's touching communication to his brothers Carl and Johann in
the matter of his deafness. In the body of the letter he has been
begging them not to think him hostile, morose, or misanthropical, and
making clear to them how little they know of the secret cause of his
apparent indifference. Then, on the outside of the packet, comes this
last melancholy outpouring:

'Thus, then, I take leave of you, and with sadness too. The fond
hope I brought with me here [to Heiligenstadt] of being to a
certain degree cured, now utterly forsakes me. As autumn leaves
fall and wither, so are my hopes blighted.'

Of this spontaneous running-over from text into postscript, literature
has many specimens--none, perhaps, more effective in its way than the
kindly stanza with which Mr. Bret Harte makes Truthful James bring to a
close 'His Answer to Her Letter':

'P.S.--Which this same interfering
Into other folks' ways I despise,
Yet if it so be I was hearing
That it's just empty pockets as lies
Betwixt you and Joseph, it follers
That, having no family claims,
Here's my pile; which it's six hundred dollars,
As is yours, with respect, Truthful James.'

One might, indeed, say more for postscripts than that they are often
pardonable; they are often actually useful. They can be bent to the
service of the writer; and over and over again, I dare say, have been
appended with careful deliberation. They are invaluable as modes of
emphasizing matter contained within the limits of the letter proper.
They form 'last words' which can be charged with any measure of
significance. Many people remember the case of the sailor who, after
mentioning thrice in the course of one short epistle the desired
purchase of some pigtail, felt constrained to add yet another reminder
in the shape of a 'P.S.--Don't forget the pigtail.' Not less impressive,
probably, was Sir Hew Dalrymple when, writing in 1775 to a friend to
exhort him to give preferment to a worthy young cleric, he observed, in
a postscrip