Page:When You Write a Letter (1922).pdf/97

 Lamb knew how to write a friendly letter. His were usually longer than most of us will today take the time to write, but they were so genuine, so unstudied, so free from conventional cant, so humanly like the man who wrote them. The following letter to his old friend Barron Field illustrates almost everything that is good in a friendly letter:

My dear Barron:

The bearer of this letter so far across the seas is Mr. Lawrey, who comes out to you as a missionary, and whom I have been strongly importuned to recommend to you as a most worthy creature by Mr. Fenwick, a very old, honest friend of mine; of whom, if my memory does not deceive me, you have had some knowledge heretofore as editor of the Statesman; a man of talent, and patriotic. If you can show him any facilities in his arduous undertaking, you will oblige us much. Well, and how does the land of thieves use you? and how do you pass your time, in your extrajudicial intervals? Going about the streets with a lantern, like Diogenes, looking for an honest man? You may look long enough, I fancy. Do give me