speaking to him, as I could not seek and disturb him there.

He also was a writer, though quite of a different school from
myself. He wrote ardently upon politics, political economy, and
statistics, things which I took no interest in.

The nation might arrange itself how it pleased for all I cared. What
I wanted to arrange was my own life. I had no ambition to set my
country's affairs straight, my own thoughts were too much engaged in
tugging my own into some sort of order.

There were some letters for me, and I turned them over listlessly,
balancing them tip in succession against the toast-rack in front of
me, without opening any. The last I came to was quite different from
any of the others, and being the last, it stood foremost before me,
and I looked at it while I went on with my breakfast.

It is curious how representative a letter generally is of its
writer. The mere outside is like a psychological photograph. Of
course it does not give details, but it presents you with a
wonderfully accurate outline of the cut of a person's identity. This
envelope was square, and looked as hard, white and clean as if a
stone-tablet had passed through the post. It bore a delicate, weak,
feminine superscription, hurried and careless; the writing unformed,
but graceful and distinguished; and on the other side of the letter,
stamped in grey, stood a crest, and the motto subscrolled.

Yes, the woman who had written it was very like the letter.
Immaculate and perhaps somewhat hard, delicate, and in will a little
weak, impulsive and undecided, well-bred, and strikingly typical of