Page:Letters of Life.djvu/383

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
LITERATURE.
371

To prepare the memoir of a colored preacher, of whose character and existence I was ignorant. The document stated that the plan was to raise two thousand dollars by the publication of his biography and sermons, to present to his wife and nine children; who, it would seem, were all free, in health, and able to support themselves.

A hymn to be sung at the anniversary of a charitable society, for which I had recently furnished one; the argument adduced being that "a new one every year was interesting and advisable."

Epitaphs for a man and two children, with warning that only two hundred and fifty letters must be allowed in the whole, as the monument was not large enough to contain more.

A minister in Virginia encloses an urn, drawn with a pen, and colored by his son, a boy of fourteen, to be dedicated to the memory of Mrs. Judson. An acrostic is requested on the name of this son, whom he considers a genius, yet desires not to have it made "so personal" that it may not with propriety be published in one of their newspapers.

An ode, to be set to music, which must be finished early to-morrow morning, that copies may be struck off in season for the choir.

To write a publishing house in one of our large cities a laudatory notice of a volume I have never seen, by whose profits the author hopes to be able to travel in Europe.