They are never without ink or soft lead-pencils. Ink
has accomplished more wonderful things than man can enumerate; though
just now a dissertation on ink in ink is ill-timed.
To return again to the anonymous letter. Add and multiply the lives it
has wrecked, the wars brought about. Menelaus, King of the Greeks,
doubtless received one regarding Helen's fancy for that simpering son
of Priam, Paris. The anonymous letter was in force even in that remote
period, the age of myths. It is consistent, for nearly all anonymous
letters are myths. A wife stays out late; her actions may be quite
harmless, only indiscreet. There is, alack! always some intimate
friend who sees, who dabbles her pen in the ink-well and labors over a
backhand stroke. It is her bounden duty to inform the husband
forthwith. The letter may wreck two lives, but what is this beside
stern, implacable duty? When man writes an anonymous letter he is in
want of money; when woman writes one she is in want of a sensation. It
is easy to reject a demand for money, but we accept the lie and wrap
it to our bosoms, so quick are we to believe ill of those we love.
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