ANONYMOUS LETTERS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 215, 16 August 1862, Page 5

ANONYMOUS LETTERS.

[From the Saturday Review.]

Anonymous letters have always heen in bad odour. 4i Cowardly " and " skulking " are the mildest epithets generally applied to those who write them. Xohody attends to anonymous letters; nobody values them at a straw ; nobody heeds the information contained in them. Once, indeed, we heard a dignified ecclesiastic of highly logical turn of mind declare that he never, hy any chance, condescended even to read an anonymous letter. Yet, the policy o utterly ignoring anonymous letters borders on tlie foolish. To take one instance only. Had not considerable attention been paid once upon a time to an anonymous letter, a certain Gunpowder Plot would have heen successfully accomplished, to tlie great personal inconvenience of King, Lords, and Commons, and the utter consternation of Protesbmt England. The anger which people evince on the subject o anonymous letters rather gives the lie to the contemptuous indifference assumed by them. Such letters are of various degrees of significance ; often stingless and innocuous; sometimes irritating and mischievous; sometimes, though very rarely, not destitute of utility, as an indication of what others think of us, or as a guide to our conduct in difficult circumstances. A man of mean and spiteful nature may have recourse to this underhand method of damaging some one obnoxious to him, audi may reflect with satisfaction on the ease and safety with which the falsest and bitterest things can be said in a letter with no name to it. But malignant letters, evidently the work cf an enemy, are far less effective than the writers suppose or wish. Few people, except in novels, were ever seriously hurt by stabs in the dark, administered through the medium of the Post-office.

Preserved .specimens of "epistolary abuse, sent under a feigned name, or with none at all, would afford sufficient amusement for an idle half-hour or so. We will tuppose you to be an M.P., or otherwise to occupy a somewhat public position. People not personally acquainted with you, but indignant with you on public grounds, seldom manage to hit hard in anonymous communications. They may strike with a will, hut not knowing your weak points, the blow T falls very feebly. They accuse you of infirmities from which your friends know you to be exempt, and of crimes of which you feel you are perfectly innocent. For example, an anonymous writer denounces with cutting severity your vacillation of purpose. But you know that if you have a fault it is not vacillation, but unamiable obstinacy. You are charged with time-serving flattery. But you are too well aware that your habitual impulse is to say the most disagreeable things at the T most unseasonable moments. You are twitted

with chicken-hearted timidity, whereas you are conscious that your especial characteristic is peevi.-di pugnacity.- You are scoffed at as a sanctified hypocrite, whilst conscience tells you your error lies in pretending to he less religious than you are. In short, your antagonist beats the air. 1 our withers are unwrung, and none ot his sarcasms touch you. Blunders and bad shots are m like manner perpetrated in lower forms of attack. A valued friend who, whenever he takes off his hat, exhibits a head almost as destitute of hair as a billiard ball, was bitterly assailed .in an anonymous letter, aud the crowning sarcasm was an insinuation that he ! were a wig. It is not then anonymous letters from people who are very angry with you, whether personally acquainted with you or not, that commonly inflict pain or annoyance. The anonymous letters that really sting, be it much or little, are letters written in a'cool vein of criticism by persons, not particularly angry, -who propose to set j<ou right ou a point where you have made an unlucky blunder, or who, from an instinctive pleasure in giving pain, tranquilly communicate the impressionsentertained by themselves and others 6a your character and conduct in general. Our friends and the public are too busy for any extensive indulgence in anonymous criticism; but it is open to question whether good might not *be done by plain-speaking of this kind when thoroughly conscientious. Every one who feels how difficult it is to tell the whole truth, even to our ; nearest friends; we mean the whole truth ' about their faults and foibles. One wanders round and round it, nibbles at it, makes little incursions into it, then hurriedly retreats, and loses no time in enveloping oneself in a cloud of complimentary dust. One utters a wholesome rebuke, then anxiously qualifies it; tears off the veil from hidden errors with one hand, and with the other tenderly replaces it; in short, blows hot and cold in the same moment. The reasons are obvious. First, a man does not like to lose his friend, and very few friendships would endure a week if friends affectionately but unreservedly told each other all their faults. Secondly, we really feel, most of us, a little shy in pointing out errors and infirmities, even from the best of motives, of which we arc perfectly sure we are quite as guilty ourselves. There is also that reluctance ! to see a person uncomfortable or unhappy; which deters many from doing their duty to j those about them, and ultimately causes ten- ' fold more discomfort and misery than that wliich it temporarily averts. It is said that our enemies'judgment of us is at least nearer I the truth than our own. The judgment of our friends is probably still nearer. We refer to real friend?—men who value us, regard us with warm affection, and who are alio really intimate with us. There are those who profess to love one another, but know as little of each other's inmost nature as total strangers. Such people are not friends. If then, a friend could fairly and fully inform us what there was amiss in us, what there was reprehensible, and what there was lacking, we should not be so far off as we are at present from carrying out the maxim of knowing ourselves. Sit down, however, and try to write a letter to a friend, ,whose failings 3'ou earnestly desire to correct. It you can do so, imagine that you are writing incognito; imagine that yonr friend never will nor can know who was the writer. Write as accurately, as truthfully, and justly as you can. Then read it, and consider what additions and modifications you would wish to make if you had to announce yourself the author of it. Compare the original with the amended letter, and you wall see at a glance in how disguised a form friends tell each other what are"called home truths. We wrap up the home truths in a sugarj' envelope, just as nurses veil the obnoxious powder in deceptive jelly, and as prudent apothecaries, who wish to sell their drugs, silver their pills for patients, whether old or young. Even the soft Dean " who never mentions Hell to ears polite," would probably come out stronger if he preached, like a cowled monk in the Coliseum at Rome, in strict incognito, with only his eyes visible to the congregation. Anonymous letters are commonly traceable to their source through peculiarities of style, the general tone of thought, the information they contain, and such like indications, very difticult to conceal. Walpole tells a story of a certain nobleman, whose neglected education saved him from a duel. A pamphlet, called " The Snake iv the Grass," dealing out abuse right aud left, was jokingly attributed to him. One of the victims sent him a challenge. His lordship professed he was not the author, but the other demanded a denial in writing under his own hand. The nobleman thereupon took pen and ink and began—" This is to scratify that the buk called the Snak " —the gentleman abruptly interrupted, acknowledged his lordship could not be the author, and took his leave with many apologies. A letter purporting to come from a butler whose feelings had been outraged by an article in this journal, caused us some perplexity. It was a trifle too w^ell written for a British butler, yet one remark there was which strongly savoured of butlerdom. We had instanced a teetotal butler as one of the few of that order deserving of thorough respect and confidence. Our indignant correspondent commenting on this, triumphantly asked, '• How could a butler who was a teetolaler do-his duty by his master's cellar ?" The question rather posed us. It was so exactly what a genuine butler would say that the only conclusion we could arrive at "was that, if the writer were not a butler he ought to be one.

The attempt to decipher character by means of handwriting is not merely a favorite amusement of young ladies who have plenty of leisure. It is a rather popular expedient amongst the large class of persons who have an especial relish for money earned by imposing on the public. An advertisement appears very often in some provincial papers, announcing that gentlemen and ladies desirous of obtaining an accurate delineation of their characters, tastes, habits, antipathies, and predilections, will receive the same by sending specimens of their handwriting, with one shilling's worth of postage stamps, post paid, to Profes-x sor "Walker, or some such individual, at the " Cup and Saucer Tavern," Little Britain. The investment must be remunerative, or these advertisements would be less numerous. People respond from idle curiosity, from want of anything better to do, or, may be, from a half-and-half faith in the skill of the professor. An anonymous letter is despatched, and, if the postage stamps have not been omitted, there is no fear about an answer. Professor Walker will promptly return a cut and dried portraiture ofthe writer's mental and moral configuration, of which the following may be regarded as a very fair sample:—

The writer, though by no means insensible to kind- j ness, is painfully alive to unmerited censure. He is fond of praise, but does not much value that bestow- I ed by the vicious and the ignorant. Indignant "when subjected to deliberate insult, in course of time he recovers his wonted composure, and though he cannot forget, he at least can forgive. He cherishes a warm appreciation of Shakspeare, and delights in many parts of Milton. He sees much to admire in Tennyson. He prefera old cathedrals, gleaming in the moonlight, to tbe handsomest warehouse, illumi. nated by brilliant sunshine. His spirits ar& unequal, but when everything goes well with him, and nobody contradicts him, his amiability and gentleness are very touching. When air and exercise have sharpened his appetite, he eats his meals with relish, and however exhausted by fatigae and want of regular rest, will sleep as soundly as a young child. He has much appreciation of wit and humor, and ought to be himself witty. But whether he is so or not, depends upon the degree of encouragement offered by the company. There i« more in the writer thau anybody believes—

more -than'he himself believes. He is a very remarkable man, but very few df his friends and neigh-" hours in the least suppose it.

Such a character will probably suit most of us. It only needs the merest, trifle of touching up to make it palpably exact. If the handwriting seems rapid and irregular, omethi:!"may safely be thrown in about impulsiveness of character and energetic vehemence. A stiff, well-balanced -handwriting will, of course, suggest a methodical turn of mind. Long loops and sprawling, tails denote some degree of weakness of character, and thereupon an exhortation to lean upon the counsel of a judicious friend is the obvious de mction. Other hints are afforded by even the most ordinary hand writing. But die staple ofthe character for which you pay your shilling is common^ such as we have sketched—a string of judicious truisms, seasoned with a spice of not too delicate flattery.

The oddest purpose to which theauonymous form of correspondence is applied is that of procuring a wife. The preliminary step is an advertisement in the newspapers, in which the gentleman modestly describes himself-"as a middle-aged man of agreeable disposition, domestic habits, a pleasing exterior, and in receipt of a certain income of ,£3OO. a year in the . 3 per cent Reduced Aunuities." He gbes on to express, in language denoting tender" devotion to the fair sex, tempered by a keen, eve to business, " his anxiety to meet with a lady, if possible younger than himself possessed" of a tolerable share of personal attractions, capable of appreciating modest worth, and filling, a* void * in a heart that yearns for sympathy, with an annual income not less thai his own, arising from freehold property or Government securities." Letters, not stating the names ofthe writers, are requested to .be directed, postpaid, to a given address. It may be that these advertisements are sometimes intended as a trap fox- the unwary. Sometimes, on the other hand, when the genuine effusion of a solitary bachelor or disconsolate widower, the advertiser himself is entrapped. A ladylike billet deux reaches him from some -'distant part of the kingdom, peuned in a graceful Italian handwriting, and conveying the inter•esting assurance that the writery despairing to meet with a kindred spirit, had rtsolved to live a life of lonely seclusion, but struck by the tone of respectful diffidence and manly candor pervading the advertisement, she so far relents as Tto enter into preliminary negotiations on rl.o subject so near his heart. Tiie Still move interesting information follows in a postscript, i that she is blessed with an income not inferior \ to his own, and that her too partial friends a-;- . Insure her that in face and figure the is eminently prepossessiug. A correspondence of some length follows, ending in the 'advertiser abruptly making his appearance in a remote provincial town, clad, at the express instigation. of the fair unknown, a la Malvolio, iv some" ridiculous costume, aud, instead of meeting the lady', encountering a policeman, who locks him up for twelve hours on suspicion' ofbehig a London pickpocket. Or, as a still picasauter finale, he meets, as he supposes, the lady of liis affections, follows her to the nubile house; of which she turns out to be the barmaid, and is immediately introduced in orderly succession to fifty-five male relations of his intended, who after amusing themselves with him for aa hour

or so, try to bully him into giving them a dinner, and, failing, smash his' hat, tear his coat in two, turn him out of doors, and chase him through the streets, until "lie : .finds, refuge within the friendly gates of the railway station.

In one of Miss Edgeworth's admirable \7IQS> — L'Amie inconnue —the plot hinges upon th° devotion felt by a romantic young lady for an unknown friend, styliriar herself Araminfa, who plies her with letters In a strain of poetical rhapsody, to which she pens congenial replies Carried away by the ardour of her attachment* Angelina Warwick at length takes fii<rht from home, and, after many adventures, discovers her unknown friend Arammta in the shape of Miss Hodges, a masculine, vulgar woman about, to "Ik* married to a subdngdilookinquaker, TNat Gazabo by name. ° ,jV «Ut„H ef' TOr, isEO l0? d'" sai<l Angelina to herself and her look so vulgar-aad tiie?e is such a smell cf brandy ' Kou- nnlike the elegaat d»'i«ar I had expected in my unknown friend '" And Mis Warwick involuntarily shrank from the stidin" eim

" You are overpowered, my Angelina—lean on me " said her Arammta. '

So much for placing faith in letters as evidence of the manners and morale of persons whom we do not know and have never seen The evidence may be better than nothing but it is poor and untrustworthy as a "clue to ascertaining the writer's claims to our confidence and our regard. But anonymous letter* though of little use as a criterion ofthe worth of the person who writes them, may sometimes, we think, convey a lesson or su».-^st a warning to the person who receives them. Itis lawful to gather a hint, even from our enemies and it is just possible that truths worth our knowing may occasionally reach ns, even through the unsatisfactory and disreputable medium of an anonymous letter.