The most vital of these principles is pretty generally observed.
Thackeray perceives it when at the close of a delightful letter to
Mrs. Brookfield he exclaims, "Why, this is almost as good as talk!" He
was right: it was written talk. If read aloud with pauses for the
correspondent's reply, the perfect letter would make perfect
conversation. It should call up the voice, gesture, and bearing of the
writer. Though it may be more studied than oral speech, it must appear
no less impromptu. This, indeed, is its essential charm, that it
contains the mind's first fruits with the bloom on, that it exhale
carelessly the mixed fragrance of the spirit like a handful of wild
flowers not sorted for the parlor table but, as gathered among the
fields, haphazard, with here a violet, there a spice of mint, a
strawberry blossom from the hillside, and a sprig of bittersweet. This
is the opportunity for the clergyman to show that he is not all
theologian, but part naturalist; the farmer that he is not all
ploughman, but part philosopher. This is the place for little buds of
sentiment, short flights of poetry, wise sermons all in three lines,
odd conceits, small jests rubbing noses with deacon-browed moralities;
in short, for every fine extravagance in which the mind at play
delights.
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