Dear Mr. Editor,—I have given very careful consideration to the Prize Competition papers on A Little Exile, and am sending a list of those which seem most to deserve the awards.
The selection has been the less easy since the papers present a very general level of excellence, and are all intelligently written, showing that the story has been carefully read.
Some few exceed the prescribed space, and others fall into the very natural error of enlarging on the opening incidents of the tale and leaving out a few lines for its development and conclusion.
Those contributors selected for prizes have, it seems to me, best observed the balance and proportion of the story, and have thus given the fairest idea of what it is all about.
But it gives me much pleasure to praise, with scarcely a reservation, the care and neatness which the many aspirants have bestowed on their papers; the correctness of the spelling, and the legibility of the writing.
May I venture to hint that a little more care given to punctuation would, in this instance, have still further lightened the reader’s pleasant task.
Faithfully yours,
Leslie Keith.
⁂ We quite endorse all that the Author says in the above letter.—Ed.