Let it beckon! Let it nod!
              My knees are supple-jointed;
         It cannot stop me if it would
              Before the day appointed.

POSTE RESTANTE.

THERE are sermons in stones; but how
many in letters! It matters little what may
be within them. I have a whole batch, now
before me, which I do not intend ever to
open; and one, I know by the postmark, is
fifteen years old. There is quite enough
interest for me in their envelopes and their
superscriptions, in their crests and stamps,
in the blots and the scratches they have
picked up on their way. For a letter can,
no more than a man, get through the world
without some rubs, often of the hardest.
Here is a dainty little pink thing of an
envelope, longer than it is broad — a flimsy
brick from the temple of love, shot away as
rubbish long ago. It is directed in the
beautifullest little Italian hand — so small
that the effigy of her most gracious Majesty
on the stamp might be, by comparison, the
portrait of the sovereign of Brobdingnag.
But, woe is me! that careless postman! The
little letter, ere ever it reached me, tumbled
into the mud. Dun brown splashes deface
its fair outside. The mud is dry as dust
now, but not dustier or drier than the
memories which the envelope awakens.

Those droll dogs of friends you knew once,
were addicted to sending you "comic"
envelopes through the post—- monstrous
caricatures of yourself, or themselves, sketched
in pen and ink—- waggish quatrains in the
corner addressed to the postman or to Mary
the housemaid who took the letters in. They
fondly hoped, the facetious ones, that the
letter-carrier would crack his sides, that
Mary would grin her broadest grin, at the
sight of their funny letters. But Mary and
the postman did nothing of the kind. Once
in a way, perhaps, the hardworked servant
of the G. P. O. who handed in the "comic"
missive would observe, "He must be a rum
'un as sent this;" but the remark was made,
more in grim disparagement than in humorous
appreciation. As for Mary, she would
still further turn up that nasal organ for
which nature had already done a good deal
in the way of elevation, and would remark,
"I wonder people isn't above such
trumperies." Mary knew and revered the sanctity
of the post. Did you ever study the outsides
of servants' letters? When the housemaid
has a military sweetheart, he is generally in
the pedestrian branch of the service, and his
hand being as yet more accustomed to the
plough than to the pen, he induces a smart
sergeant to address his letters for him. The
non-commissioned officer's stiff, up-and-
down, orderly-room hand is not to be
mistaken. He is very gallant to the housemaid.
He always calls her "Miss" Mary
Hobbs; but, on the other hand, he never
omits to add a due recognition of yourself
in the "At William Penn's, Esq." I have
even known a sergeant ascend to the regions
of "Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera," and a
flourish. Mary's old father, the ex-butcher,
does not waste any vain compliments upon
her or upon you. "Mary Hobbs, housemaid,
at Mr. Penn's." He is a courteous old
gentleman, nevertheless; and if Mary shows
you her letter, which she does sometimes in
pardonable pride at the proficiency of her
papa, who, "although he was never no
schollard and going on for seventy-three, is
as upright as a Maypole," you will rarely
fail to discover, in the postscript, that he
has sent his "duty" to you.

But, I repeat, I have had enough in my
time of the insides of letters, and I intend
to write no more letters, and to read as few
as ever I possibly can. With the aid of a
poker, a good wide fireplace and a box of
matches, I got rid, recently, of a huge mass
of old letters. It was the brightest of blazes,
and you would have been astonished by the
diminutiveness of the pile of sooty ashes
which remained in the grate after that
bonfire. Yet have you not seen in the little
frescoed pigeon-holes of the Roman
Columbaria, that a vase not much bigger than a
gallipot will hold all that is mortal of one
who was once senator, pro-consul, prætor—-
what you please? The ashes of a lifetime's
letters will not more than fill a dustpan.

Dismissing the letters themselves,
relegating them all to fiery death behind those
bars, I linger over the envelopes; I dwell
upon the postmarks, I long to be in the
distant lands to which those marks refer. There
is vast room for speculation in the address
of a letter, for, in the mass of hand-writings
you have seen, many have been forgotten.
In the letter itself your curiosity is at once
appeased, for you turn to the signature
mechanically, and ten to one, if the letter be
an old one, to read it gives you a sharp pang.
Burn the letters, then; keep to the
envelopes. Especially scan those which have
been directed to you at hotels abroad. In
very rare instances does the memory of a
foreign hotel remind you of aught but
pleasant things. You lived your life. The bills
were heavy, but they were paid. You enjoyed.