Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Letters
It is by the benefit of Letters, that absent friends are in a manner brought together.
Seneca.—Epi. 4.
They are those wing’d postilions that can fly
From the Antarctic to the Arctic sky;
The heralds and swift harbingers that move
From east to west on embassies of love.
Howell.—On Letters, Poem II. Line 5.
Heaven first taught letters for some wretch’s aid,
Some banish’d lover or some captive maid.
Pope.—Eloise to Abelard, Line 51.
Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul,
And waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole.
Pope.—Eloise to Abelard, Line 57.
And thus his quill
Declares to her the absent lover’s will.
Cowley.—The Song, Verse last.
Kind messages that pass from land to land,
Kind letters that betray the heart’s deep history,
In which we feel the pressure of a hand,
One touch of fire and all the rest is mystery!
Longfellow.—The Sea-side, and Fire-side: Dedication.