on 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.

Generally speaking, the unknown correspondent doe