"A great many people keep their friends in mind by writing to them," says Booth Tarkington in the Guest of Quesnay, "but more do not." "Friendships grow dull," Jowett writes to Margot Asquith, "if two persons do not care to write to one another."
I presume that the friendly letter is the one most commonly written, because people of all ages from nine to ninety write friendly letters, and I suppose, too, that it is the sort which we most commonly intend to write and then don't. The thought is disturbing me as I am writing this paragraph that I had promised myself today to write two friendly letters that should have gone yesterday and that I am afraid may not get off until tomorrow. The friendly letter is the most satisfactory sort of all, for it does not hold the writer to so rigid a routine, it is more flexible and less exacting in its requirements. Ordinarily it need not be written today; its composition may be deferred until tomorrow or next week, or to that pleasant and indefinite future when we plan to accomplish all things worthy and worth while; it is the letter we write because it gives us pleasure to do so, or more likely because we hope to give some one else pleasure.
Sometimes, in cases of acute emotion, when the writers are in love for example or imagine they are, the friendly letter is a matter of daily occurrence and goes to great lengths; but this high fever of friendship ordinarily reaches an early crisis and soon burns itself out. The more restrained it is, the more likely it is to be permanent. Friendly correspondence is in general, however, desultory, irregular, and for that reason often the more interesting because the arrival of the letter is unlooked for and unexpected. Once a month or once a year or every once in a while usually tells the story of the friendly letter. Such a correspondence is, as it should be, like the irregular meeting of friends whose paths do not regularly cross and who find keener pleasure in their occasional comings together. The occasional letter, like absence, tends to make the heart grow fonder.
The form of the friendly letter is like that of the letter of courtesy. It omits from the beginning the street and the city address of the one to whom it is written; it eliminates, whenever possible or convenient, both in form and materials everything that would suggest the business letter, because it really does not concern itself with business. I say advisedly "whenever possible or convenient," because sometimes friendly letters are written in hotels or during business hours when a lull in the rush of business matters gives one a few minutes of leisure which may be occupied in friendly converse, with the materials at hand, just as one often makes a friendly call in his business dress not having either the time or the opportunity to put on the togs specified by the style book for such occasions. Many business men, and other people in fact, keep at hand various sorts of stationery to meet such social and business situations as may arise, but the average man does not make such provision, and takes liberties with social conventions when he is writing to his old friends and uses whatever materials are handiest. It is, however, only between intimate friends, who have known each other a good while, that such neglige in correspondence is permissible, or under other extraordinary circumstances.
In the friendly letter the person written to may be addressed, should be addressed in fact, as he would be spoken to in ordinary conversation when the correspondents are face to face. "Dear Bill," "Dear Doctor Brown," "My darling child," will go in a friendly letter if these are the terms ordinarily employed, and the signature may follow equally familiar lines. It is quite permissible to use a nickname; I still continue to address an old classmate, who occupies a most important and dignified position in real life, as "Face"—a name attached to him in college because nature had given him a very plain physiognomy. I am myself generally known by my initials or as "Tommy." It is well to keep in mind, however, that conservatism is always wisest in letter-writing.
It is safest never to write in a letter anything that would embarrass either correspondent or cause difficulty or regret if the letter should fall into other hands than those for which it was intended. Written secrets are dangerous. If it is necessary for you to say to your friend, "Burn this letter after you have read it," it is just as well usually to burn it before it is sent and before anyone else has had a chance to read it. People generally are pretty careless with their correspondence, and it is safe to conclude that most letters, no matter how confidential they are assumed to be, fall into the hands of more than one person. Things that involve the good character or the exemplary conduct of a third person, particularly private things, things that are vulgar or sentimental, or that are purely personal gossip, are better avoided. Such things are difficult to retract when they have been written, and they are often quite as difficult and embarrassing to face, when, as is often the case, we are forced to do so. I have seen enough of such letters picked up by curious landladies, and inquisitive relatives, and prying acquaintances and sent back to trouble the writer, to realize how humiliating they may sometimes become.
The complimentary close of a friendly letter should usually be the conventional "Sincerely yours," "Cordially yours," or even "Lovingly yours" if that is the way you feel about it. The unusual ending may be used only when the relationship between the two people concerned is unconventional or unusually friendly and familiar. In such cases the writer may close in any way that seems to him fitting. To close a letter in these days with "Your friend" is not considered quite good form, though there is no reason that any intelligent person can give why it should not be so. Everything that has been previously said concerning sentence structure, paragraphing, good grammar, abbreviations, and similar details holds for the friendly letter. There is as much reason why we should be careful of form and detail in writing to our friends as in writing to anyone else in the world, just as a proper husband feels under obligations to show his wife the same courtesy and thoughtfulness as he accords to other women. One should not neglect to show a man consideration and courtesy just because he is one's friend.
The purpose of friendly letters is to interest our friends, to keep in touch with them, and to keep alive the warm feelings which first awakened the friendship. To accomplish this we must tell them what they want most to know, and what they usually want to know most concerns ourselves. At the beginning of the recent war a young friend of mine accompanied one of the first American units to go to France. It was with considerable agitation and feeling that I saw him leave, and I waited with eagerness and impatience to receive his first letter. As the days passed I followed in my mind every detail of his progress. I saw him embark, I met all the new friends with whom he came in contact on the voyage, I felt all the excitement contingent upon the dangers which he encountered on the sea, and I finally landed with him in France. I followed him to Paris over a not unfamiliar road, for I had been there two or three times myself, and I then waited to have him confirm all that I had imagined.
His first letter came within a month or so. He was having some difficulty with his credit, he told me; would I write his Chicago banker or call him up over the telephone and get the matter straightened out for him. He was uncertain just what he would get into or where he would be sent. There was not a word about the voyage or the friends we both knew who were on the boat with him, not a word about himself or his impressions of anything or anybody. He had apparently not thought of me or of any interest I might have in him. I was disappointed, disgusted almost, and I replied as briefly and in as business-like a way as he had written me and wounded his feelings badly by doing so. He wanted what he had not attempted to give me! If he ever had any real adventures during the two years he was gone, he never said so. He philosophized a good deal on the different points of view which he encountered in France, he wrote me the detailed results of his introspections, but he seldom told me anything which I really wanted to know, and so far as he responded to anything which I asked or said in my own letters to him he might never have received or read any one of them. His letters were philosophical essays, not in any sense correspondence.
Another young fellow to whom I write at very irregular intervals makes a quite different impression upon me. His letters are very personal, and no matter how negligent he is about writing or how long delayed his replies are, I am always quite sure when I receive his letter that when he wrote it he had my last communication before him. He catches my subtlest joke, he responds to my mood, whatever it may have been, as surely as he would have done were we together, and my slightest inquiry never goes unnoticed or unanswered. His letters seem to me almost as satisfying as if we were talking face to face. The difference between these two men was very little in temperament or in training; they were about the same age, they were educated similarly; it was largely a matter of knowing how to write a letter, of appreciating what will interest and hold the attention of one's friends. One kept his readers in mind when he was writing; the other thought very largely of his own personal feelings.
First of all it is well to remember that when people of approximately the same age are writing to each other, unless their main interests are technical or professional, the thing they want most to hear about is each other's movements. Protestations of love and undying friendship are all right for a time as a subject to dwell upon in friendly correspondence, but we are all more or less the slaves of everyday routine; the day's work takes most of our time and thought, and before we have gone far in our friendly correspondence we begin to inquire, "What are you doing? Where are you going? What are you thinking about? What ambitions are stirring within you?" The main thing that interests us in our friends is the routine of their everyday life and thought.
A friend of mine not long ago read me a letter which she was about to send off to a mutual acquaintance. "You have told her nothing about yourself," I said, "and you haven't seen each other for years. She'll like what you have said, but she would much rather hear about you and your home and your children and your varied interests, than to read the impersonal details with which you have filled your letter."
"But it seems conceited to talk about oneself all the time," my friend replied. Well, so it may, but that is what our friends want unless it is for us to talk a little about themselves.
We have all met people who, no matter how much of an effort we make to introduce a new topic of conversation, continually cling to their own. You say something about your summer's experience, but they continue to discuss their housemaid's eccentricities; you ask a question, but they ignore it, and wander on recounting their own domestic trials, or discoursing on their own personal experiences. There is no one more exasperating than this sort of person in friendly correspondence. You introduce a topic, you throw out a suggestion, or you ask a question in your letter, but your topic is never taken up in his reply, your suggestion is never followed, your question is entirely ignored. It is all as if he had never received or read your letter. The result is disheartening. When you answer a friendly letter, it is safest to have it before you, to have re-read it before you begin the reply, and in imagination, at least, to have a little conversation with the individual to whom you are writing. As you recall his manner, his tricks of conversation, his facial expression, you will respond to these as if he were before you. And conversation both in writing and in oral discourse involves an interchange of thoughts. Some people have the erroneous idea that it is sufficient if one person does all the talking while the other simply listens, but this is not conversation, it is only monologue.
A real and satisfying reply to a friendly letter requires that all the questions be answered in some way or another, we seldom ask them simply to fill space; that there be a sympathetic response to suggestions, and an understanding and an appreciation of the tone and spirit in which the first letter was written. Otherwise there is no incentive or inspiration to continue the correspondence. "Have you read 'Main Street'?" I ask when I am writing Cornish, "and what do you think of it? It seems to me to have eliminated from the lives of its characters everything that is sweet and kindly and wholesome. It is true in every detail and yet false in that it omits so much that is also quite as true as what is presented." I wait for his reply, eager to get his point of view, for I know he is a keen critic, and that he is quite unlikely to agree with me, but when it comes he makes no reference to my inquiry. He has forgotten my question or has possibly never read my letter through. I am disappointed; I feel slighted as I might if I had attempted to take part in a conversation and had been totally ignored or crowded out of the talk.
The friendly letter should avoid formality and stiffness in style. It should be natural and conversational in its use of words, for in reality at its best it is only a conversation on paper. Contractions and elisions and the easy vernacular of everyday speech are not only permissible but quite desirable. Some letters I receive are as formal as a mathematical theorem or as the explanation of a new scientific fact. The friendly letter should be full of "aren't's" and "don't's" and "haven't's" and "shan't's" and the thousand and one contractions that give naturalness and movement to friendly conversation. There are many colloquial words and expressions sometimes closely related to slang which might not pass muster in a formal essay or even in dignified spoken discourse but which would be quite unobjectionable and even commendable in a friendly letter.
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 some notion of the manners of the inhabitants where you are. They don't thieve all day long do they? No human property could stand such continuous battery. And what do they do when they an't stealing?
Have you got a theatre? What pieces are performed? Shakspeare's, I suppose; not so much for the poetry, as for his having once been in danger of leaving his country on account of certain "small deer."
Have you poets among you? Damn'd plagiarists, I fancy, if you have any. I would not trust an idea, or a pocket-handkerchief of mine, among 'em. You are almost competent to answer Lord Bacon's problem, whether a nation of atheists can subsist together. You are practically in one:
Scarce seemeth there to be."
Our old honest world goes on with little perceptible variation. Of course you have heard of poor Mitchell's death, and that G. Dyer is one of Lord Stanhope's residuaries. I am afraid he has not touched much of the residue yet. He is positively as lean as Cassius. Barnes is going to Demerara, or Essequibo, I am not quite certain which. Alsager is turned actor. He came out in genteel comedy at Cheltenham this season, and has hopes of a London engagement.
For my own history I am just in the same spot, doing the same thing, (videlicet, little or nothing,) as when you left me; only I have positive hopes that I shall be able to conquer that inveterate habit of smoking which you may remember I indulged in. I think of making a beginning this evening, viz. Sunday, 31st Aug., 1817, not Wednesday, 2nd Feb., 1818, as it will be perhaps when you read this for the first time. There is the difficulty of writing from one end of the globe (hemispheres I call 'em) to another! Why, half the truths I have sent you in this letter will become lies before they reach you, and some of the lies (which I have mixed for variety's sake, and to exercise your judgment in the finding of them out) may be turned into sad realities before you shall be called upon to detect them. Such are the defects of going by different chronologies. Your "now" is not my "now"; and again, your "then" is not my "then"; but my "now" may be your "then," and vice versa. Whose head is competent to these things?
How does Mrs. Field get on in her geography? Does she know where she is by this time? I am not sure sometimes you are not in another planet; but then I don't like to ask Capt. Burney, or any of those that know any thing about it, for fear of exposing my ignorance.
Our kindest remembrances, however, to Mrs. F., if she will accept of reminiscences from another planet, or at least another hemisphere.
People of different ages and different experiences are interested in different things. Children are interested in adventures, in things which show surprise, which call for courage or which bring one into contact with personal danger. If there is a touch of sentiment or romance in it, so much the more will it please the young girl. If it involves personal encounters with wild animals, rivalry in sport, or hair-breadth escapes from death, it fascinates the boy. There is nothing like a painted Indian or a grizzly bear, a catamount or a jaguar to stir up interest when writing to a boy. I don't really know just what a jaguar is, but I know he is interesting and dangerous. Things mean more to a boy than do people. No one recognized this fact better than. Theodore Roosevelt, and he has utilized it to a most interesting degree in his letters to his children. It is about dogs and horses and bobcats and other delightful animals that he constantly writes. One becomes acquainted with his dogs as if they were people with human characteristics and human feelings. Turk, the bloodhound, and "the pig named Maude" who went about the camp picking up scraps, and Skip, and Jack, are all like characters in a story book. As we read on through the letters we look eagerly for the reappearance of the familiar names as, I am sure, the Roosevelt children did while they were waiting for the coming of their father's next letter.
Men in active life are usually interested in business and sports and sometimes in politics, and these things should be kept in mind when writing to them in a friendly way. Their own particular business interests them more than does any other man's. If you are writing to a farmer it is better to discuss crops and live stock and the prices of pork and other farm products than it is to ramble on concerning fashions and foulard, as if your friend were running a ladies' furnishing shop. His interests and tastes must always be considered. Women are fondest of personal gossip. They are more concerned with people than with things. Their time is taken up normally with the details of home life and association with their neighbors, and it is these that they dwell most upon in their letters. Intimate things are to them most interesting and most vital. Here is a Christmas letter, full of appreciation, cheerful, happy, and delightfully frank and personal. It makes one eager for the next one. It isn't written by Lamb or Stevenson or even by Charlotte Brontë, but just by a healthy, intelligent, friendly human being.
Dearest Alice:
I had your card this morning, and it was such a dear one that I came near shedding tears on my toast at the breakfast table. I am so sorry about your eye, and know that it must be a most miserable experience. I surely hope it will be well in less than three months. I appreciate your writing at all.
I took your package to Wilmington with me, and did not waste any time in opening it on Christmas morning. Your gifts are always a delight, and I do a lot of bragging because Tom has a hand in them. I love this blue one, and my "face and fancy" are entirely suited. It is perfect on mahogany, and I have had a brown fruit basket on it, and today tried a blue bowl with a gay flowered rim, the blue in the bowl being just a shade deeper. I look with wonder and admiration upon the intricacies of that edge.
Are you wondering at the change in our address? I should have told you before about our adventures in housekeeping. We sold our house in August, and are living in an apartment until we can find a house we like better. We are on the first floor and have a back porch and a lawn and plenty of room and the cat, and I like it so well that I am not even thinking about a house at present.
Roger is in Rochester for a year as chemist in the Eastman Research laboratory and returns to Hopkins in the fall for three years for his Ph.D. Richard is in his second year in Engineering, but is greatly interested in printing. Little A. K. is eight years old and goes to Friends' School. Arthur goes on frequent business trips, and you may see him one of these days. We are within two blocks of the University, so Richard leaves at eight twenty-nine for his eight thirty class.
Arthur is deep in "The Beloved Vagabond,"—do you and Tom adore "Aristide Pujol?" The boys had fits over it. And have you read any of Christopher Morley's books? I thought "Parnassus on Wheels" was great, and have read some of "Shandygaft."
I am so glad you had a fine Christmas. Arthur gave me a banjo clock which he got at Ovington's when he was in New York just before Christmas, and a lamp for my dressing table. "We all went to Wilmington as Father has not been well, and did not feel like leaving home. My sister lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, and has a darling baby a year old whom we call "Little Liz" to distinguish her from grandmother. The family history being now concluded, I send you a kiss, and a Happy New Year, and two good eyes.
Having a new letter from you, I will tear up the one I had last year.
Loving you, as ever,
January 4, 1921.
People who are past their youth are fondest of reminiscence. The days of their childhood linger most tenderly in their memories. The friends with whom they went to school, the roads they traveled in boyhood, the scenes of early adventure when they were young and strong, have for them the keenest interest. Walter Nicholson wrote me not many months ago. We lived "across the section" from each other when we were children, just a mile apart, and we were together regularly. We have not seen or heard much of each other since we were eighteen, I think, and his home is hundreds of miles from mine. The letter is full of references to "Prairie Star" and "Kentucky" school houses, to spelling bees and revival meetings. Where are all the old fellows, he wants to know: Ves Byers, and Taylor Curtis, and the Gregory boys? And what has become of the Baily girls? What hilarious times we used to have with them. So he rambled on, recalling old experiences and bringing back old memories. It was an interesting and delightful letter which made me feel young again, when I was able to forget how many years had intervened since we had walked together across the prairies or driven along the flower-bordered roads. It was unconscious art which gave him the power to re-create in my mind the vivid pictures of my young manhood.
Sometimes we may take for granted that our friends will be interested in the same things in which we find interest, but not always. It is safest, before we begin to write the friendly letter, to study the epistle to which we are making a reply, and then to give some serious consideration to the personal interests, to the likes and dislikes of the one to whom we are writing. Writing a friendly letter is like starting a conversation with a friend. There are a thousand things about which we might write. We should not write that which is most pleasing to us, but that which is likely to be most interesting to him. That is the secret well worth your learning, of the effective friendly letter.