Keeping Private Letters Private: Burn Them

1912

Wise Man

Once upon a time a wise man penned a letter full of confidential statements, and at the end he wrote a line, heavily underscored: "Burn this letter." Then, being a wise man, he took his own advice and burned the letter himself.


Gift That Is Divine

If instead of a gem, or even a flower, we could cast the gift of a lovely thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels must give — George MacDonald.


Jane Austen Unpopular

It has been pointed out with some surprise that the late W. S. Gilbert had a strong dislike for Jane Austen, but a correspondent of the New York Evening Post reminds us that Mark Twain had a similar antipathy. He said once that "a library that does not contain Jane Austen's works is a good library, even if it hasn't another book in it."


Have Enjoyed Long Life

Living in the Isle of Wight is a family of three brothers and two sisters who are all in receipt of the old age pension, and whose combined ages total 387 years. The veteran of the family is Mrs. Ann Harris of Cowes, aged eighty-four; the "baby" of the family is Mr. Robert Butt of Niton, who has seen only seventy-two summers.

—The Daily Commonwealth, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, December 17, 1912, page 11.