the fibre of the mind. This superlatively fine historic portrait was
painted by Carlyle solely from Walpole's material--for we cannot
reckon chance newspaper scraps as counting for much--and thus the
gossip of Strawberry Hill conferred immortality on himself and on our
own Titanic statesman. But Walpole's influence did not end there.
Whoever wants to read a very good and charming work should not miss
seeing Sir George Trevelyan's "Life of Charles James Fox." To praise
this book is almost an impertinence. I content myself with saying that
those who once taste its fascination go back to it again and again,
and usually end by placing it with the books that are "the bosom
friends" of men. Now the grim Scotchman lit up Horace's letters with
the lurid furnace-glow of his genius; Sir George held the serene lamp
of the scholar above the same letters, and lo, we have two pieces that
can only die when the language dies! What a feat for a mere
letter-writer to achieve! Let ambitious correspondents take example by
Horace Walpole, and learn that simplicity is the first, best--nay, the
only--object to be aimed at by the letter-writer.

We have forgotten the easy style of Walpole; we do not any longer care
much for Johnson, though his letters are indeed models; we have no
time for lovely whimsical elaborations like those of Cowper or Charles
Lamb; but still some of us--persons of inferior mind perhaps--do
attempt to write letters. To these I have a word to say. So far as I
can judge, after passing many, many hundreds and thousands of letters
through my hands, the best correspondents nowadays are either those
who have been educated to the finest point, and who therefore dare not
be affected, or those who have no education at all. A little while ago
I went through a terrific letter from a young man, who took up
seventeen enormous double sheets of paper in trying to tell me
something about himself. The handwriting was good, the air of educated