Page:Letters of Life.djvu/384

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LETTERS OF LIFE.

A list of the female poets who have written in all languages, a statement of their births and deaths, with information of the best editions of their works, and where they may be obtained, for a gentleman resident in a distant State, who thinks of undertaking a compilation of feminine literature.

A piece to copy in the album of a lady of whom I had never heard, requested by a gentleman "to be sent as soon as Saturday afternoon, because then he is more at leisure to attend to it."

To punctuate a manuscript volume of three hundred pages, the author having always had a dislike to the business of punctuation, finding that it brings on a "pain in the back of the neck."

A poem, intended as a school premium for a young lady "not yet remarkable for neatness, but who might be encouraged to persevere if its beauties were set forth before her in attractive verse."

A letter from utter strangers, at a distance, stating that a person who had been in their employ had come to settle in this city, and they wished some pious individual to have charge over him, and warn him against evil company. That they should not thus have selected me, had they known of any other religious person in Hartford. They express apprehensions that he is going to set up the "rum-selling business," and propose, in a postscript, that when I obtain an interview, I should "wait and see whether he will own Christ unsolicited."