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sentiment introduced to relieve it of the dulness, that 

 would otherwise attach to a mere business transaction. 

 If it was a letter of friendship, why then you might 

 look for the rarest treat ; words chosen with the most 

 beautiful appropriateness, and ideas at once the most 

 original and striking, playful or grave, humorous or 

 sarcastic, descriptive or argumentative, as the occasion 

 required. I think some of the finest criticisms I have 

 read have come to me, in the freedom of friendship, in 

 the form of letters, written on the spur of the moment. 

 If those letters could be gathered up, they would con- 

 stitute a book of the most bewitching character. There 

 was nothing artistic about them ; and yet they were 

 characterized by all the best rules of art, well nigh 

 perfect in their kind. They were the etchings of a 

 master speaking pictures each picture in its place, 

 and yet there was no evidence of constraint in the 

 gallery. Here again we see that wonderful combina- 

 tion. Many can write, and write beautifully, letters 

 of sentiment, who cannot write letters of business. It 

 was said of Addison, that his greatest difficulty was 

 just here. How to express himself on business, simply 

 and to the point, was the problem. Professor Alex- 

 ander could do the one as well and as easily as the 

 other ; and the business part over, he would insert 

 some gem of sentiment that would set off the whole 

 previous dry detail to the greatest advantage. 



A distinguished friend of his, with whom he was 

 spending a few days, told me, that one morning he 

 took up a little book of Latin hymns, and in a few 

 hours wrote a translation, in verse, of the Stabat 

 Mater, that was not translated, and inserted the 

 leaves so beautifully, that they looked as though they 

 had been bound up in the volume. Passing out with 

 him for a walk, they came to a brick-yard, when this 



