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EVERY position in life demands letter-writing. A letter is the great link between parents and children, between lovers, between friends; while in business relations it makes fortunes, or mars them. A good letter must, firstly, be absolutely correct in every mechanical detail;-then style comes into question; then the matter, which must be intelligible to the meanest as well as the highest understanding. The great art of letter-writing is to be able to write gracefully and with ease, and no letter should wear the appearance of having been laboriously studied.
The first point to be observed in your letter is that you write in a clear, legible hand, a hand that anybody and everybody can read. You may fill your pages with the most exquisite and sparkling ideas, but if they cannot be read except to the torture of the peruser, your diamond thoughts lose all their glitter, and people to whom you write, instead of being anxious to receive a letter from you, will mentally groan at the very idea of its receipt, knowing the toil and trouble that awaits them in its perusal.
Be patient, then, and plod on steadily until you write a bold, clear, clean hand, and never let a scrap of your writing pass from you that is not carefully executed.
Never erase. It is much better, though wearying the task, to commence all over again. An erasure is a sore to the eye.
Orthography is next to be considered. Bad spelling is disgraceful, and many people spell badly from simple carelessness. Read carefully the works of the best authors. Write extracts from these works, and you will intuitively spell correctly. Your sense will become offended at a misspelt word. Use the simplest language. Always have a dictionary (pocket) beside you, but never consult it unless you are in doubt. Once consulted, you should remember the word ever afterward. Never divide your words into syllables at the end of the line unless you cannot help it. If you have space for the first syllable, let your hyphen be bold. Thus:
It is sometimes a great con-
solation to me that, etc., etc.
A word of one syllable must not be divided. Bring it bodily over to the next line.
Compound words must be divided into the simple War-whoop, not warw-hoop; bread-stuff, not breadst-uff.
GRAMMAR.
Place your verbs correctly at all hazards. Never use the adverb for the adjective, or the adjective for the adverb. Never take liberties with the relative pronouns, or mingle in dire confusion tenses and moods. A careful study of the admirable grammar in this cyclopedia will keep the letter writer in the straight path.
PUNCTUATION.
In order to have the meaning of words readily understood, it becomes necessary to divide those words into paragraphs, sentences and clauses, by means of punctuation. As an instance of the absence of punctuation and the farcical result, just read this:
Lost on Broadway on Thursday evening last an umbrella by an elderly gentleman with a carved ivory head
