It is a comfort to write to you about it, for to-day I am in the sore and disquieted condition which is just as unreal and useless as though I were treating the matter with indifference.  Indifference indeed would be criminal, but morbidity is nearly as bad.

I once saw a very dramatic thing take place in church.  It was in a town parish near my old home.  The clergyman was a friend of mine, a wonderfully calm and tranquil person.  He went up to the pulpit while a hymn was being sung.  When the hymn concluded, he did not give out his text, but remained for a long time silent, so long that I thought he was feeling ill; the silence became breathless, and the attention of every one in the church became rivetted on the pulpit.  Then he slowly took up a letter from the cushion, and said in a low, clear voice:  “A fortnight ago I found, on entering the pulpit, a letter addressed to me in an unknown hand; I took it out and read it afterwards; it was anonymous, and its contents were scandalous.  Last Sunday I found another, which I burnt unread.  To-day there is another, which I do not intend to read”—­he tore the letter across as he said the words, in the sight of the congregation—­“and I give notice that, if any further communications of the kind reach me, I shall put the matter into the hands of the police.  I am willing to receive, if necessary, verbal communications on such subjects, though I do not think that any good purpose can be served by them.  But to make vague and libellous accusations against members of the congregation in this way is cowardly, dishonourable, and un-Christian.  I have a strong suspicion”—­he looked steadily down the church—­“of the quarter from which these letters emanate; and I solemnly warn the writer that, if I have to take action in the matter, I shall take measures to make that action effective.”

I never saw a thing better done; it was said without apparent excitement or agitation; he presently gave out his text and preached as usual.  It seemed to me a supremely admirable way of dealing with the situation.  Need I add that he was practical enough to take the pieces of the letter away with him?

I once received an anonymous letter, not about myself, but about a friend.  I took it to a celebrated lawyer, and we discovered the right way to deal with it.  I remember that, when we had finished, he took up the letter—­a really vile document—­and said musingly:  “I have often wondered what the pleasure of sending such things consists in!  I always fancy the sender taking out his watch, and saying, with malicious glee, ’I suppose so-and-so will be receiving my letter about now!’ It must be a perverted sense of power, I think.”

I said, “Yes, and don’t you think that there is also something of the pleasure of saying ‘Bo’ to a goose?” The great man smiled, and said, “Perhaps.”

Well, I must try to forget, but I don’t know anything that so takes the courage and the cheerfulness out of one’s mind as one of these secret, dastardly things.  My letter this morning was not anonymous; but it was nearly as bad, because it was impossible to use or to rely upon the information; and it was, moreover, profoundly disquieting.