Ever yours,
VIOLET WRAY.

Mrs. J. Lockwood Smith to Mrs. James Gordon Harrington Balderston

DEAR MRS. BALDERSTON,—­

I want to enlist your interest in a clever young Scotchwoman, a Miss Alexandrina Ramsay, who hopes to give four lectures on Dante in Philadelphia this winter.  Her father was an eminent teacher in his day, and I understand she is thoroughly equipped for her work.  Heaven knows I wish fewer lecturers would cross the sea to enlighten our ignorance, and so will you when you get this letter; but I remember with what enthusiasm you talked about Italy and Dante at Brown’s Mills last spring, and I trust that your ardour has not waned.  The Century Club seems to me the best possible field for Miss Ramsay.  Do you know any one on the entertainment committee, and do you think it is not too late in the season to apply?  Of course there are always the schools.  Dear Mrs. Balderston, I should feel more shame in troubling you, did I not know how capable you are, and how much weight your word carries.  Violet Wray and Mrs. Wilfred Hamilton are tremendously interested in Miss Ramsay.  May I tell Violet to send her to you, so that you can see for yourself what she is like, and what chances she has of success?  Please be quite frank in saying yes or no, and believe me always,

Yours very cordially,
ANN HAZELTON SMITH.

The Customary Correspondent

“Letters warmly sealed and coldly opened.”—­RICHTER.

Why do so many ingenious theorists give fresh reasons every year for the decline of letter writing, and why do they assume, in derision of suffering humanity, that it has declined?  They lament the lack of leisure, the lack of sentiment,—­Mr. Lucas adds the lack of stamps,—­which chill the ardour of the correspondent; and they fail to ascertain how chilled he is, or how far he sets at naught these justly restraining influences.  They talk of telegrams, and telephones, and postal cards, as if any discovery of science, any device of civilization, could eradicate from the human heart that passion for self-expression which is the impelling force of letters.  They also fail to note that, side by side with telephones and telegrams, comes the baleful reduction of postage rates, which lowers our last barrier of defence.  Two cents an ounce leaves us naked at the mercy of the world.

It is on record that a Liverpool tradesman once wrote to Dickens, to express the pleasure he had derived from that great Englishman’s immortal novels, and enclosed, by way of testimony, a cheque for five hundred pounds.  This is a phenomenon which ought to be more widely known than it is, for there is no natural law to prevent its recurrence; and while the world will never hold another Dickens, there are many deserving novelists who may like to recall the incident when they open their morning’s mail.  It would be pleasant to associate our morning’s mail with such fair illusions; and though writing to strangers is but a parlous pastime, the Liverpool gentleman threw a new and radiant light upon its possibilities.  “The gratuitous contributor is, ex vi termini, an ass,” said Christopher North sourly; but then he never knew, nor ever deserved to know, this particular kind of contribution.