NOVEMBER 105 



biography ; and the more absolutely true biography is, the 

 more interesting it becomes to the public. I have noted 

 down from some book perhaps Symonds's Life that ' the 

 first canon in the art of unsophisticated letter-writing is 

 that, just as a speech is intended for hearers rather than 

 for readers, so is a letter meant for the eye of a friend 

 and not for the world. The very essence of good letter- 

 writing is, in truth, the deliberate exclusion of out- 

 siders and the full surrender of the writer to the spirit 

 of egotism amicable, free, light-handed, unpretending, 

 harmless, but still egotism. The best letters are always 

 improvisations, directly or indirectly, about yourself and 

 your correspondent.' Letters of this kind are, in my 

 opinion, the very ones most worth giving to the public. The 

 man of the world says : ' Burn all letters, and only write 

 insignificant notes with little meaning in them so that 

 there may be nothing for others to keep.' Goethe says : 

 ' Letters are among the most significant memorials 

 a man can leave behind him.' This seems to me 

 true of private individuals, as well as of those who have 

 played a notable or distinguished part on life's stage. 

 But this is not the general opinion to which I, being 

 only a prudent old woman, am content to bow and once 

 more return to the box this touching, interesting, and 

 characteristic love-story of my father and mother. I find, 

 however, one letter written by my father, and dated 1834, 

 which is so impersonal and so different from the ordinary 

 love-letter to a young girl that I think it can appear an 

 indiscretion to no one that I should publish it. 



They met for the first time by chance on a summer's 

 afternoon for a little over an hour, and so completely was 

 it love at first sight on his side that he told my mother 

 afterwards he would gladly have married her there and 

 then had it been possible. She belonged to a Tory family, 

 so bigoted and narrow in their ideas that they could hardly 



