ticed with scrupulous care and at long intervals, and demanding discriminating thought. Even in my own childhood, which is not a very remote period as history goes, I recall that the writing of a letter was not a task to be undertaken lightly, or accomplished without considerable serious preparation. It was analogous to preparing for threshers or getting ready to entertain the minister; all the family had a part in it and no one was allowed to shirk his duty.
Once a year a letter was written to our relatives in northern England. This letter was carefully, thoughtfully, and, I might almost say, prayerfully done. There were no misspellings of "received" or "accommodate," no sentences without subjects or verbs, no constructions whose grammatical parentage was in question, no careless illegible penmanship, no omission of vital and necessary details. The writing was like copper plate, the items of news were sifted and carefully thought out. Even though my father, who did the writing, had had little formal training in the subtle art of composition, this letter would have borne the cold scrutiny of a
