ne have the penalty to pay," expansive correspondence might be less
dangerous. But no one can thus limit folly or sin, and its consequence
may even touch those who were not even aware of the writing of the
letter.

The abuse of letter-writing is one of the greatest trials of the
epoch. Distance, which used to be a protection, is now done away with.
Every one cries out, and insists upon your listening. They write
events while they are only happening. People unknown intrude upon your
time and take possession of it. Enmities and friendships thousands of
miles away scold or caress; one is exacting, another angry, a third
lays upon your conscience obligations which he has invented. For a
mere nothing--a yes, or a no--idle, gushing people fire off continual
notes and insist upon answers. Now this kind of letter-writing exists
only because postage is cheap; if such correspondents had to pay
twenty-five cents for giving their opinions, they would not give them
at all. It is an impertinence also, for though we may like persons
well enough to receive from them a visit, or even to return it, it is
a very different thing to be called upon to retire ourselves with pen
and ink and note paper, and give away time and interest which we are
not inclined to give.

Plenty of girls write very clever letters,--letters that are an echo
of their own circle, full of a sweet audacity and an innocent swagger
of knowledge of the world and of the human heart that is very
engaging. And the temptation to write such letters is very great,
especially as both the writer and her friends are apt to imagine them
evidence of a large amount of genius. Indeed, some who have a
specially bright pen, or else a specially large circle of admirers and
flatterers, arrive speedily at the conviction that they can just as
easily write a book. So without reason and without results, they get
themselves heart-burning and heart-ache and disappointment. For there
is absolutely no kindred whatever between this graceful, piquant
eloquence _du billet_ and the fancy, observation, and experience
necessary to successful novel writing.

If a girl really has a vein of true sentiment, she ought not at this
day to give it away in letter-writing. There is a safer and more
profitable way to use it; she can now take it to market and sell it
for pudding, for the magazines and ladies' newspapers. Sentiment and
fancy have a commercial value; and instead of sealing them up in a
two-cent