" Look at the letters of
Lady Sarah Lennox, who afterwards became the mother of the brilliant
Napiers. This lady did not know how to put in a single stop, and her
spelling is more wildly eccentric than words can describe, yet her
letters are enthralling, and natural fire and fun actually seem to
derive piquancy from the schoolgirlish errors. If you sit down to
write with the intention of being impressive, you may not make a fool
of yourself, but the chances are all in that direction; whereas, if
you resolve with rigid determination to say something essential about
some fact and to say it in your own way, you will produce a piece of
valuable literature. Of course there are times when dignity and
gravity are necessary in correspondence, but even dignity cannot be
divorced from simplicity. Supposing that, by an evil chance, a person
finds himself bound to inflict an epistolary rebuff on another, the
rebuff entirely fails if a single affected word is inserted. The most
perfect example of a courteous snub with which I am acquainted was
sent by a master of measured and ornamental prose. Gibbon, the
historian, received a very lengthy and sarcastic letter from the
famous Doctor Priestley, of Birmingham.
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