epistolary art is not simply as perfect as it was in days past; at all
events we believe so, and proceed to set down a few reflections on
letter-writing.

To write a really good letter, two things in especial are demanded. The
first is, that you write only of that which is either familiar to you or
in which you have some interest; and in the next, that you can write
with ease, and on a footing of freedom as regards your correspondent.
"The pen," says Cervantes, "is the tongue of the mind," and in no form
of composition is this more strictly true than of letters. In a certain
degree a letter should share the characteristics of good conversation:
the writer must realise the presence and the mood of the person for whom
the letter is destined. Just as good-breeding suggests that you must
have the tastes and sentiments of your interlocutor before you for ends
of enjoyable conversation, and that, within the limits of propriety and
self-respect, you should at once humour them and use them; so in good
letter-writing you must write for your correspondent's pleasure as well
as please, by merely communicating, yourself.

Here comes in the delightful element of vicarious sympathy, or dramatic
transference, which, brought into play successfully, with some degree of
wit and sprightliness of expression, may raise letter-writing to the
level of a fine art.

And this allowed, it is clear that letters may just be as good now as at
any former period, and accidental circumstances have really little to do
with it. Humboldt has well said that "A letter is a conversation between
the present and the absent. Its fate is that it cannot last, but must
pass away like the sound of the voice."