Side Lights | Page 6

"In many respects it is a
good world, but it might be made better, nobler, finer in every quarter,
if the poor would only recognise wise and silent leaders, and use the
laws which men have made in order to repair the havoc which other
men have also made." But he reverts to the note of sad and kindly
cynicism as he contemplates this supreme ironic procession of life with
the laughter of gods in the background, even although he hastens to
remind us that much may be made of it if we are wise.
These prose sermons by a tamed Berserker remind us somewhat of a
leopard in harness. But they are good sermons for all that, veritable
tours de force considering who is their author and how alien to him was
the practice of preaching. His essay entitled "A Little Sermon on

Failures" might be read with profit in many a pulpit, and "Vanity of
Vanities" would serve as an admirable discourse on Ecclesiastes. They
illustrate the manysidedness of their gifted author not less than his
sympathetic treatment of distress and want in "Men who are Down."
These fragments snatched from the mass of his literary output need no
introduction from me. Mr. Grant Allen has written with friendly
appreciation of the man. I gladly join him in paying a tribute of
posthumous respect and admiration to James Runciman and his work.
W.T.S.

SIDE LIGHTS.
I.
LETTER-WRITERS.
Since old Leisure died, we have come to think ourselves altogether too
fine and too busy to cultivate the delightful art of correspondence.
Dickens seems to have been almost the last man among us who gave
his mind to letter-writing; and his letters contain some of his very best
work, for he plunged into his subject with that high-spirited
abandonment which we see in "Pickwick," and the full geniality of his
mind came out delightfully. The letter in which he describes a certain
infant schoolboy who lost himself at the Great Exhibition is one of the
funniest things in literature, but it is equalled in positive value by some
of the more serious letters which the great man sent off in the intervals
of his heavy labour. Dickens could do nothing by halves, and thus, at
times when he could have earned forty pounds a day by sheer literary
work, he would spend hours in answering people whom he had never
seen, and, what is more remarkable, these "task"-letters were marked
by all the brilliant strength and spontaneity of his finest chapters. He
was the last of the true correspondents, and we shall not soon look upon
his like again. With all the contrivances for increasing our speed of
communication, and for enabling us to cram more varied action into a
single life, we have less and less time to spare for salutary human
intercourse. The post-card symbolises the tendency of the modern mind.
We have come to find out so many things which ought to be done that
we make up our minds to do nothing whatever thoroughly; and the day
may come when the news of a tragedy ruining a life or a triumph
crowning a career will be conveyed by a sixpenny telegram. In the bad

old days, when postage was dear and the means of conveyance slow,
people who could afford to correspond at all sat down to begin a letter
as though they were about to engage in some solemn rite. Every patch
of the paper was covered, and every word was weighed, so that the
writer screwed the utmost possible value for his money out of the
post-office. The letters written in the last century resembled the
deliberate and lengthy communications of Roman gentlemen like
Cicero: and there is little wonder that the good folk made the most of
their paper and their time. We find Godwin casually mentioning the
fact that he paid twenty-one shillings and eightpence for the postage of
a letter from Shelley; readers of The Antiquary will remember that
Lovel paid twenty-five shillings postage for one epistle, besides half a
guinea for the express rider. Certes a man had good need to drive a
hard bargain with the Post Office in those pinching times! Of course
the "lower orders"--poor benighted souls--were not supposed to have
any correspondence at all, and the game was kept up by gentlemen of
fortune, by merchants, by eager and moneyed lovers, and by stray
persons of literary tastes, who could manage to beg franks from
members of Parliament and other dignitaries. One gentleman, not of
literary tastes, once franked a cow and sent her by post; but this kind of
postal communication was happily rare. The best of the letter-writers
felt themselves bound to give their friends good worth for their money,
and thus we find the