ever above the line of perpetual snow. They never thaw out. Bound
by a sort of viscosity of spirits, that peculiar stamp of the
Anglo-Saxon temperament, they are incapable of getting their thoughts
and emotions under way; with the best will in the world, genuine
warmth of feeling, minds stocked with information on all subjects,
they are never fluent. The man with no ear must not hope to be a
musician, nor the man with no fluency a letter-writer. Yet this is not
all. You will find some at perfect ease in conversation who, touching
pen to paper, exhibit the affected primness commonly ascribed to the
maiden aunt. They have not learned that this is a place where words
must speak for themselves without comment of inflection, gesture of
the hand, or interpreting smile. Here to be unaffected one must take
thought. As on the stage a natural hue must be obtained by unnatural
means, so in the writing of letters one must a trifle overdo in order
to do but ordinarily. A word which rings on the lips with frank
cordiality will stare coldly from the written page and must be
heightened to avoid offense. This is a license requiring the exercise
of moderation and the utmost tact. Not all expressions suitable for
conversation need reinforcement in black and white. In speaking one
frequently raps out a phrase whose literalness one's eyes warn the
listener to question. These must be toned down or glossed. An example
of the toned down variety, which illustrates as well men's fondness
for assailing their friends with opprobrious epithet, is offered by
Darwin when he writes, "I cannot conclude without telling you that of
all blackguards you are the greatest and best." If Darwin had been
talking face to face with Fox, he would doubtless have called him a
blooming blackguard outright.

A writer in a journal of psychology points out the strong psychic link
existing between a certain short expletive of condemnation and a
refractory collar-button. These words seem to come at times charged
with the very marrow of the mind, and, if the letters of a man who
occasionally indulges in them be wholly purged of them, the letters
lose one of their most distinctive characteristics. The point to be
made is, that the personal word is all-important, that till the fact
is related to the writer, it is dead. If we want news, we can consult
the dailies; but in letters facts are little, ideas about facts
everything. That is to say, all events, especially the more tr