is no doubt that compliments to OTHER authoresses are much less
amusing, than those one writes or receives oneself; apologies also
for not writing sooner, CAN pall upon one in print, however soothing
they may be to the justly offended recipient, or to the
conscience-stricken correspondent.

'I must have seemed a thankless wretch, my dear Miss Mitford,' etc.
etc. 'You, my dear friend, know too well what it is to have to
finish a book, to blame my not attempting,' etc. etc. 'This is the
thirty-ninth letter I have written since yesterday morning,' says
Harriet Martineau. 'Oh, I can scarcely hold the pen! I will not
allow my shame for not having written, to prevent me from writing
now.' All these people seem to have been just as busy as people are
now, as amusing, as tiresome. They had the additional difficulty of
having to procure franks, and of having to cover four pages instead
of a post-card. OUR letters may be dull, but at all events they are
not nearly so long. We come sooner to the point and avoid elegant
circumlocutions. But one is struck, among other things, by the
keener literary zest of those days, and by the immense numbers of
MSS. and tragedies in circulation, all of which their authors
confidingly send from one to another. There are also whole flights
of travelling poems flapping their wings and uttering their cries as
they go.

An enthusiastic American critic who comes over to England emphasises
the situation. Mr. Willis's 'superlative admiration' seems to give
point to everything, and to all the enthusiasm. Miss Austen's
Collins himself could not have been more appreciative, not even if
Miss de Burgh had tried her hand at a MS. . . . Could he--Mr.
Willis--choose, he would have tragedy once a year from Miss