moll messengier wandering willows friendship

When letters were reasonably few, and cost a shilling each, men had the time to write well, and thought it worth their while to do so. There are hundreds of brief notes that he addressed to a multitude of inquirers, their very brevity displaying his genius, and conforming to the view he held when he wrote: 'We cannot write letters nowadays, but must be content to send mere notes and memoranda. He knew so well the power of letter-writing, and also how glad the recipients would be, and what lifelong friends he would secure. To a friend he once said, 'I am immersed to the chin in letters,' and although multitudes of grateful acknowledgments for pecuniary help sent on behalf of his various Institutions were lithographed, he never allowed any letter of importance to escape his notice which called for a personal response in his own handwriting. His correspondence was voluminous, necessitating a great amount of time and labor on his part in replying to it. It will be observed that but few of his letters are fully dated, this being an exceptional idiosyncrasy. Spurgeon wrote, he preserved comparatively a few, and those who are the fortunate possessors of his communications are chary of parting with them, and in a very large number of instances the epistles are of such a private nature that it would be a breach of confidence, as well as of courtesy, to make them public. His favorite ink was violet, though he judged 'there is no better ink than that to be bought in penny bottles,' and his was usually the 'pen of a ready writer,' and he did not take kindly to stylus and the like, for he says: 'I am writing with a patent pen which carries its own ink, but I don't think much of it for it seems to be very indistinct, and more like a pencil than a pen.' The variety of the paper that he used well illustrated his versatility, as he filled the sheets with 'thoughts that glow, and words that burn.' Of the innumerable letters which Mr.

In early days it was like copper-plate, and to the end of his life, unless deformed by pain, was always singularly chaste and clear, and to the very last note he penned, it maintained its uniform neatness. Spurgeon's calligraphy was characteristic of himself. Collected and Collated by His Son Charles Spurgeon

Moll messengier wandering willows friendship