This requires consideration; there can be no general rule. It seems to me that people commit the error of transferring the subject from the region of oral conversation to the region of written intercourse. If a man asked me the way in the street it would be rudeness on my part not to answer him, because the answer is easily given and costs no appreciable time, but in written correspondence the case is essentially different. I am burdened with work; every hour, every minute of my day is apportioned to some definite duty or necessary rest, and three strangers make use of the post to ask me questions. To answer them I must make references; however brief the letters may be they will take time,--altogether the three will consume an hour. Have these correspondents any right to expect me to work an hour for them? Would a cabman drive them about the streets of London during an hour for nothing? Would a waterman pull them an hour on the Thames for nothing? Would a shoe-black brush their boots and trousers an hour for nothing? And why am I to serve these men gratuitously and be called an ill-bred, discourteous person if I tacitly decline to be their servant? We owe sacrifices--occasional sacrifices--of this kind to friends and relations, and we can afford them to a few, but we are under no obligation to answer everybody. Those whom we do answer may be thankful for a word on a post-card in Gladstone's brief but sufficient fashion. I am very much of the opinion of Rudolphe in Ponsard's "L'Honneur et l'Argent." A friend asks him what he does about letters:-- _Rudolphe._ Je les mets Soigneusement en poche et ne réponds jamais. _Premier Ami._ Oh! vous raillez. _Rudolphe._ Non pas. Je ne puis pas admettre Qu'un importun m'oblige à répondre à sa lettre, Et, parcequ'il lui plaît de noircir du papier Me condamne moi-même à ce fâcheux métier. ESSAY XXIII. LETTERS OF FRIENDSHIP. If the art of writing had been unknown till now, and if the invention of it were suddenly to burst upon the world as did that of the telephone, one of the things most generally said in praise of it would be this. It would be said, "What a gain to friendship, now that friends can communicate in spite of separation by the very widest distances!" Yet we have possessed this means of communication, the fullest and best of all, from remote antiquity, and we scarcely make any use of it--certainly not any use at all responding to its capabilities, and as time goes on, instead of developing those capabilities by practice in the art of friendly correspondence, we allow them to diminish by disuse.