is darkness. But faintly, if we listen hard, is borne up to us a sound
of the scratching of innumerable pens--pens whose wielders are all
trying, as the author of this handbook urges them, to `be original,
fresh, and interesting' by dint of more or less strict adherence to
sample.

Giddily you draw back from the edge of the abyss. Come!--here is a
thought to steady you. The mysterious great masses of helpless folk
for whom `How Shall I Word It' is written are sound at heart, delicate
in feeling, anxious to please, most loth to wound. For it must be
presumed that the author's style of letter-writing is informed as much
by a desire to give his public what it needs, and will pay for, as by
his own beautiful nature; and in the course of all the letters that he
dictates you will find not one harsh word, not one ignoble thought or
unkind insinuation. In all of them, though so many are for the use of
persons placed in the most trying circumstances, and some of them are
for persons writhing under a sense of intolerable injury, sweetness
and light do ever reign. Even `yours truly, Jacob Langton,' in his
`letter to his Daughter's Mercenary Fiance',' mitigates the sternness
of his tone by the remark that his `task is inexpressibly painful.'
And he, Mr. Langton, is the one writer who lets the post go out on his
wrath. When Horace Masterton, of Thorpe Road, Putney, receives from
Miss Jessica Weir, of Fir Villa, Blackheath, a letter `declaring her
Change of Feelings,' does he upbraid her? No; `it was honest and brave
of you to write to me so straightforwardly and at the back of my mind
I know you have done what is best.... I give you back your freedom
only at your desire. God bless you, dear.' Not less admirable is the
behaviour, in similar case, of Cecil Grant (14, Glover Street,
Streatham). Suddenly, as a bolt from the blue, comes a letter from
Miss Louie Hawke (Elm View, Deerhurst), breaking off her betrothal to