LETTER-WRITING. 271 



intimate friends I quote the following letter, which was 

 written to a cousin shortly after the delivery of a 

 special sermon in the early part of the year 1887. It 

 is, I think, a fair example of his letters, and is further 

 interesting as giving his own description of his style 

 of preaching : 



I am very much pleased to hear that your people appreciated 

 my small efforts. As Mr. Swiveller remarks, after punching Quilp's 

 head, " There's plenty more of it at the same shop ; a large and ex- 

 tensive assortment always on hand. Country orders executed with 

 neatness and despatch." So, if my good fortune should take me to 



C , I shall be happy to place at your command the contents of 



my very limited treasury. I do not go in for rhetoric or special doc- 

 trines, and limit myself to the safe grounds of general exegesis. 



I very much enjoyed my L visit, and very much regret 



that M P , like J , has laid herself up by thoughtless 



imprudence. Your charming sex is an awful handful to manage, 

 and whenever the judicious husbands are out of the way, the wives, 

 like young sticklebacks, indulge in forbidden vagaries. 



The enclosed stamps are all that I can find at present, but if 



E should find them useful, they are very much at his service, 



and, for the future, I will preserve all that come to me. I hope that 



G may at last soften the Archbishop's heart. But Bishops, and, 



much more, Archbishops, seem to withdraw themselves into their 

 own Olympus above the clouds. 



Correspondence completed, another hour or so would 

 be devoted to the revision of proof-sheets for the press 

 always a labour of time with my father, for he made 

 many additions and alterations, and generally returned 

 the sheets to press with manifold paper strips gummed 

 all along the edges, each containing two or three lines 

 of additional or substituted matter. Then he would go 

 back to his writing until luncheon at half-past one. 



