I shall be very sorry if I cannot manage to get the reader to understand that the advocate wrote this biting letter without the slightest bitterness of feeling. He had read the brilliant satirical writings of the three merry wise men of London, Butler, Swift, and Sterne--those three bodies of the satirical giant, Geryon, or three furies (Parcæ) of the foolish--to such an extent that, as their disciple and follower, he never thought whether it was a biting letter or not. In his admiration of the artistic beauties of his composition, he lost sight of its meaning; and indeed, if a stinging speech were made to himself, he would think nothing of the length of its prickles in comparison with its form and shape. I need merely instance his 'Selection from the Devil's Papers;' the satirical poison bubbles and venomous prickles so frequent in that work came from his pen and ink--_i. e_. his head only, not from his heart. I take the opportunity of begging the reader always to infuse the very soul of gentleness and kindness into every word and tone he utters (because it is our words more than our deeds which make people angry), and, more particularly still, into every page he writes. For, truly, even if your correspondents have forgiven you an epistolary _pereat_ long ago, yet the old leaven of ill-will ferments anew, if the sorrel-leaf of a letter containing it chances to come to hand again. We may, of course, on the other hand, reckon upon a similar immortality for a piece of epistolary kindness. Truly, though a long, cutting December wind had made my heart stiff and immoveable to everything in the shape of kindly feeling for one who, once on a time, used to write me absolute Epistles of St. John, tender pastorals of letters, what would it matter, if I should but chance to turn up these old letters in my letter-treasury of bundles and packets of letters? The sight of the beloved handwriting, the welcome seal, the kind, endearing words, and the pieces of paper where so many a pleasure found space to sport and play, would cast the sunshine of the old affection upon the frozen heart once more; it would reopen at the memory of the dear old time, as some flower that has closed reopens when a sunbeam lights upon it, and its only thought--ay, were it but the day before yesterday that it had conceived itself mortally offended--would be, "Ah! I was too hard upon him (or her) after all." Many of the saints in the first century used to drive devils out of the possessed, in a somewhat similar way, merely by means of letters.