Casket Letters

“ The captain can scarce think it possible that a woman of virtue and honour can act so vile a part; but to convince him still more of the reality of it, this very worthy lady falls in love with the little page, and will force him to her embraces. But as it is requisite justice should be done, and that in a dramatic piece virtue ought to be rewarded and vice punished, it is at last found that the captain takes his page’s place, and lies with his faithless mistress, cuckolds his treacherous friend, thrusts his sword through his body, recovers his casket, and marries his page. ”

“ All newspaper correspondence from the war being interdicted, or so much restricted as to be of little value, I have thought that a mock narrative following events closely, but with all the licence that an unblushing liar might give himself, either as to the facts or the persons with whom he is affecting intimacy, and this being done by Major M’Caskey, would be rather good fun. ”

“ Among the early books printed at this latter place—say within ten years after Caxton’s first—was a booklet written by a certain Dame Juliana Barnes; [66] it is the first work we have encountered written by a woman; and what do you think may have been its subject? Religion—poesy—love—embroidery? Not one of these; but some twenty odd pages of crude verse “upon the maner of huntyng for all maner of bestys” (men—not being included) ; and she writes with the gusto and particularity of a man proud of his falcons and his dogs. ”

“ For the last fortnight I have been gulping down so many reckless words, burying so many reflections in my bosom, and accumulating such a store of things to tell, fit for your ear alone, that I should certainly have been suffocated but for the resource of letter-writing as a sorry substitute for our beloved talks. ”

“ Lettres de cachet were abolished at the Revolution." Century Dictionary. "The minister used to give generously blank lettres-de-cachet to the intendants, the bishops, and people in the administration. Saint-Florentin, alone, gave away as many as 50,000. Never had man's dearest treasure, liberty, been more lavishly squandered. These letters were the object of a profitable traffic; they were sold to fathers who wanted to get rid of their sons, and given to pretty women who were inconvenienced by their husbands. ”

“ Hardcastle’s letters would, at least, give novelty to my novel, I am told, that a lover with his eyes open would be the disgrace of a circulating library, and the utter ruin of the writer’s fame as a novelist ”

“ Some destroy, through life, all the letters they receive, but those on business. Some, with an agonising heart, burn them after the writer’s death, to escape the requisitions of executors. Many, alas! resign their privilege of freedom of epistolary speech, and write no letters which any one would care to preserve for an hour. ”

“ Caxton and First English Printing.
In the midst of those draggling, dreary, dismal war-times, when no poet lifted his voice in song, when no chronicler who has a worthy name wrote any story of the years, there came into vogue in Europe and in England, a trade—which in its issues had more to do with the life and spread of good literature, than any poet, or any ten poets could accomplish. ”

“ The hand in them is scarcely perceptible, let alone the voice or the scowl. Ah, but when the post knocks and the letter comes always the miracle seems repeated—speech attempted. Venerable are letters, infinitely brave, forlorn, and lost. ”

“ When the article arrived it had no title, and, as the press was waiting, a telegram was dispatched to Ruskin asking him to supply the omission. The characteristic reply came: "I never compose by telegram, but call it 'The Black Arts,' if you like." A subsequent letter of confirmation supplied as a sub-title, "A Reverie in the Strand"; and after protesting against the telegram, which "always makes me think somebody's dead," he replied to a question as to the amount owing to him for the article: "You are indebted to me a penny a line; no more and no less. ”

“ He says his hand grew tired with writing, and his eyes became dim with much looking on white paper. So he learned how to print, and had a printing-press made for himself, which he brought to England. He set it up in a little shop in London, and then he began to print books. He printed books of all sorts—tales, and poetry, and history, and prayers, and sermons. In the time which it had formerly taken him to write one book, he could now print thousands.
All sorts of people crowded to his shop to see Caxton's wonderful press; sometimes the king went with his nobles. ”

“ The letters were as happy as letters could be—at least those early letters were. There was in them a vivid and intense sense of the present time, which seemed so strong and full, as if it could never pass away, and as if the warm, living hearts that so expressed themselves could never die, and be as nothing to the sunny earth. I should have felt less melancholy, I believe, if the letters had been more so. I saw the tears stealing down the well-worn furrows of Miss Matty's cheeks, and her spectacles often wanted wiping. ”

“ I give you all my thanks for your kind letter, which, owing to the deep snow in Styria, only reached me to-day. I am, of course, sorry the world will not see the fun of M’Caskey as do the Levers, but it is no small consideration to me to be represented in that minority so favourably.
“Poor Anster used to tell of an Irish fortune so ‘tied up’ by law that it could not be untied, and left the heirs to die in the poorhouse. Perhaps my drollery in the M’Caskey legend is just as ingeniously wrapped up, and that nothing can find it. At all events, I have no courage to send you any more of him. ”

“ Pray, in what consists the pleasure of a familiar correspondence? In writing without form or reflection your ideas and feelings of the moment, trusting to the partiality of your friend every imperfect thought, and to his candour every ill-turned phrase. Such are the letters I love, and such I request of those I love. It must be a very depraved mind from whom such letters are not acceptable.
Neither the packet you left at Kingston, nor the money and greatcoat by Colonel Gausbeck, have yet reached me. ”

“ Others, again,—and those best able to appreciate the minister's peculiar sensibility, and the wonderful operation of his spirit upon the body,—whispered their belief, that the awful symbol was the effect of the ever-active tooth of remorse, gnawing from the inmost heart outwardly, and at last manifesting Heaven's dreadful judgment by the visible presence of the letter. The reader may choose among these theories. We have thrown all the light we could acquire upon the portent, and would gladly, now that it has done its office, erase its deep print out of our own brain ”

“ At the beginning of the present century the exquisite Alison Cockburn referred in one of her letters to some ‘unpareleled boon.’ The word caught her eye, and she gaily added as a postscript, ‘Cannot spell unparaleled.’
The letters of fine gentlemen are written in a fine gentlemanly way. If the fine gentleman be a wit and a poet it does not always improve the style of the letter. ”

“ His last poem was The Castaway, which, with its darkness almost of despair, shows no loss of intellectual or poetic power. In addition to his reputation as a poet C. has that of being among the very best of English letter-writers, and in this he shows, in an even easier and more unstudied manner, the same command of pure idiomatic English, the same acute observation, and the same mingling of gentle humour and melancholy. ”

“ As the epistolary style is always valuable to our sex, and, by its endless variety of subject, allures those who would shrink at the formidable idea of "composition," and its attendant criticism, I permitted them, at stated times, to express their thoughts in a letter addressed to myself. They strenuously insisted on a response, and I found this furnished me with opportunities of suggesting or enforcing subjects of consequence to us both, more fully than I could do in conversation.
Ancient and Modern Geography, with Natural and Moral Philosophy, were sources of mutual enjoyment. ”

“ Even now, though tamed by age, I see him casting wistful glances at his daughters when they send a whole inside of a half-sheet of note paper, with the three lines of acceptance to an invitation, written on only one of the sides. I am not above owning that I have this human weakness myself. ”

“ For a long time the evening darkness, the difficulty of the letters, and the style of the record, impeded him; but as he read on, the color came and went in his cheek, his hand trembled with agitation, and had there been light enough to have noted him well, even the workmen must have perceived the excitement under which he labored. ”

“ Mr. Caxton, clapping his hands gently.—"Excellent—capital! Nothing can be better; simple, natural, pertinent, concise—"
Pisistratus.—"What is it, sir—what is it! Have you really thought of a title to My Novel?"
Mr. Caxton.—"You have hit it yourself—'My Novel.' It is your Novel—people will know it is your Novel. Turn and twist the English language as you will—be as allegorical as Hebrew, Greek, Roman—Fabulist or Puritan—still, after all, it is your Novel, and nothing more nor less than your Novel." ”

“ And if you are of contrary mind, wait till you hear of a contest wherein he who defends the cause of arms is allowed to use arms, just as those who defend letters make use of letters in their defence; for if everyone avails himself of his proper weapons, you shall see that men of letters will be worsted."
"Ah," said messer Pietro, "a while ago you blamed the French for prizing letters little, and told what glorious lustre is shed on man by letters and how they make him immortal ”

“ Mr Caxton.—"Parr's Life Pills! a fine stroke of genius! It is not every one who has a weak stomach, or time to attend to it, if he have. But who would not swallow a pill to live to a hundred and fifty-two?"
Pisistratus, stirring the fire in great excitement.—"My title! my title!—what shall be my title!"
Mr Caxton, thrusting his hand into his waistcoat, and in his most didactic of tones.—"From a remote period, the choice of a title has perplexed the scribbling portion of mankind. We may guess how their invention has been racked by the strange contortions it has produced. ”

“ But a novel is not a drama."
"No, it is a great deal longer—twenty times as long, I dare say," replied Mr. Caxton, with a sigh.
"Well, sir—well! I think my Discourse upon Knowledge has much to do with the subject—is vitally essential to the subject; does not stop the action—only explains and elucidates the action. And I am astonished, sir, that you, a scholar, and a cultivator of knowledge—"
"There—there!" cried my father, deprecatingly. "I yield—I yield. What better could I expect when I set up for a critic! ”

“ Of the fact there can be no doubt. Caxton possessed only one initial of any size, the A shown among our facsimiles, which he used in one or two of his later books. His contemporaries possessed none at all. After Caxton’s death in 1491, for the next half-century and more the history of English initials is as the history of our book-illustrations—they are imported from abroad, copied from foreign originals, or of no artistic value. ”

“ And it is sinne to doe against the conscience, though that erre; Yet no mans letters may be better wanted than mine, since my whole letter is nothing else but a confession that I should and would write. I ought you a letter in verse before by mine owne promise, & now that you thinke you have hedged in that debt by a greater by your letter in verse I thinke it now most seasonable and fashional for mee to breake. ”

“ M. Cochrane.
I took the anonymous letter from my pocket, spread it out on the window ledge, and laid the latest missive beside it. A single glance afforded irrefutable proof that the handwriting was the same. The cramped and distorted letters were such as a man would write with his left hand by painful effort. In the face of such evidence, my suspicions of the oiler were perforce swept away ”

“ Caxton’s books give us the impression that they were the selections and productions of a man with a clear understanding, a wide knowledge of the world, a keen sense of humour, and a sympathy for pleasure-loving people, who proposed to do what was in his power to imbue his fellow-countrymen with an interest in literature. ”

“ He had read poetry, and a remark of his lighted up a spark of intelligence in the beautiful face of his companion that for a moment deceived him; but as he went on to point out his favorite beauties, it gave place to a settled composure, which at last led him to imagine the casket contained no gem equal to the promise of its brilliant exterior. ”

“ In the first book printed in the English language, the subject of which was the 'Histories of Troy,' William Caxton, the translator of the work from the French, in his prologue or preface, says, by way of apology for his simpleness and imperfectness in the French and English languages, "In France was I never, and was born and learned mine English in Kent, in the Weald, where I doubt not is spoken as broad and rude English as in any place of England." ”

“ You surely know some person who can make a sepia sketch. Send me a faithful copy of the room where you write, where you think, where you are you—for, you know well, there are moments when we are more ourselves, when the mask is no longer on us. ”

“ The "mother dear" probably answered her boy in the form of cakes and "goody," for there were none of her letters among this set; but a whole collection of the rector's, to whom the Latin in his boy's letters was like a trumpet to the old war-horse. I do not know much about Latin, certainly, and it is, perhaps, an ornamental language, but not very useful, I think—at least to judge from the bits I remember out of the rector's letters. ”