Letter

“ Writing winna do it—a letter canna look, and pray, and beg, and beseech, as the human voice can do to the human heart. A letter's like the music that the ladies have for their spinets—naething but black scores, compared to the same tune played or sung. ”

“ There are a hundred reasons why I value a letter from you more than that of any other friend in the world, even though it should be all that you seem to think, in ‘tameness.’ I like your so-called tame letters. ”

“ While we continue to look back at the voluminous eighteenth century and to regret the decay of letter-writing, we are every one of us every week receiving from a dozen different correspondents letters vibrant with personality, vivid, readable, inviting preservation. Far from not writing letters, people never wrote more letters than they do to-day, nor better ones; if ours are not so long as the letters of the past, they are far livelier. ”

“ Until your letter came, dear, I'd been sitting here in the half dark and thinking where I could go and ever forget you; abroad, perhaps, to drift through Italy or Spain and dream away the pain of having lost you where the crumbling ruins of older, mellower civilizations would mirror only the desolation of my heart—and then your letter came. ”

“ Not there shall you find anything of [243] that conversation apart which constitutes the joy of writing as of reading letters. The letter which is intelligible to everybody is already impersonal and almost professional in tone, and you may print it with impunity; but a letter which is addressed to a friend will, in proportion to its intimacy, teem with allusions, oddities of phrase, and obscure references which make full sense only to the recipient, and you will print it at your peril. ”

“ Letter writing, a delightful branch of literature, attained its highest excellence in the eighteenth century. It is an art which gains most, if the paradox may be allowed, by being artless. The carefully studied epistle, written [Pg 199] with a view to publication, may have its value, but it cannot have the charm of a letter written in the familiar intercourse of friendship. It is the correspondence prompted by the heart which reaches the heart of the reader. ”

“ Instead of the weekly letter of one single sheet, there comes now a frequent packet, enclosing letters from all parts of the world—tidings on a host of subjects of interest, political, scientific, or literary—a wealth of ideas to occupy the weary mind, and of pleasures wherewith to refresh the sleepless affections. ”

“ Our letters, therefore, though their sentences are not so balanced nor their periods so rounded, are more real, more truthful, more spontaneous, and more delightful than the laborious productions of our ancestors, who had to weigh every phrase, and to think out their bon mots, epigrams, and smart things for weeks beforehand, so that the letter might appear full of impromptu wit. ”

“ The hand in them is scarcely perceptible, let alone the voice or the scowl. Ah, but when the post knocks and the letter comes always the miracle seems repeated—speech attempted. Venerable are letters, infinitely brave, forlorn, and lost. ”

“ To commence a letter to a comparative stranger, or to a person with whom the writer is but slightly acquainted, is the first difficulty to overcome. Shall it be a letter or a note, written in the first or in the third person? ”

“ MY DEAR MRS. WORDSWORTH, I have repeatedly taken pen in hand to answer your kind letter. My sister should more properly have done it, but she having failed, I consider myself answerable for her debts. I am now trying to do it in the midst of commercial noises, and with a quill which seems more ready to glide into arithmetical figures and names of gourds, cassia, cardemoms, aloes, ginger, or tea, than into kindly responses and friendly recollections. The reason why I cannot write letters at home, is, that I am never alone. ”

“ You will not find the ill-defined though sumptuous penmanship affected by our copyists, or rather painters, of to-day, which delights us at a distance, but, as if invented for any other purpose than to be read, strains and tires the eyes when we look at it intently, thus belying the saying of the prince of grammarians that the word letter comes from legere, to read. ”

“ Henceforth letter-writing had to take the place of all the affection that could not be lived. ”

“ A letter is of no use unless it conveys some information, excites some interest, or affords some improvement. It may be handsomely written, correct in spelling, punctuation, and grammar, and yet stiff and formal in style—affectedly didactic, and therefore tiresome—or mawkishly sentimental, and therefore foolish. ”

“ But the true art of letter-writing rests with you—and your own personality. We would suggest that you read carefully each letter you receive, noting and remembering those expressions that most appeal to you. A good appeal is generally universal; what appeals to you in a letter you receive will appeal to others. ”

“ I mean the early habit of writing letters neatly and correctly. There are a hundred cases where a young person’s success in life may be affected by the appearance of their epistles. A letter badly written, badly spelt, or badly punctuated, is a direct and abiding proof of a neglected education, or a disorderly mind. ”

“ There is in that no formality, no assumption of function, no awkward propriety or dignity to be sustained. A letter at the opening of a book may be only a footpath, leading the curious to a favorable point of observation, and then leaving them to wander as they will. ”

“ I tore open the envelope and read the one word which comprised the answer, standing alone, naked of punctuation, on the yellow sheet: ‘Come.’
“‘That means war to the knife,’ I thought, tossing the paper on my dressing-table. ‘No words wasted.’
“As I made preparations for the trip I caught myself glancing at the letter now and then. ‘Come!’ After all, it had a certain charm of its own, that word. Like all affirmative expressions, it possessed drawing power. The more I looked at it, the more alluring it appeared. Then I examined the signature. ”

“ The close of a less intimate letter, like taking leave of a visitor in your drawing-room, is necessarily more ceremonious. And the "ceremonious close" presents to most people the greatest difficulty in letter-writing. ”

“ Then compare your copy with the letter as it stands in the book, and correct mistakes.
2. Now read carefully Jill's letter to Jack. Notice once more exactly how the different parts of the letter are written. Write the letter from dictation. Then correct what you have written by comparing it with the letter in the book.
It is well that you now know how to write a letter. There is at this very time an important letter that needs to be written by you. As you know, the teacher [Pg 97] will soon choose some one in your class to be the postmaster for Valentine Day. ”

“ The average writer of a letter might well forget culture and posterity and address himself to the task in hand, which, in other than the most exceptional sort of letter, is to say what he has to say in the shortest possible compass that will serve to convey the thought or the information that he wants to hand on. ”

“ If the Letter is to be in answer to another, begin by getting out that other letter and reading it through, in order to refresh your memory, as to what it is you have to answer, and as to your correspondent's present address (otherwise you will be sending your letter to his regular address in London, though he has been careful in writing to give you his Torquay address in full) . ”

“ For a man's expression, his gestures, and even the tones of his voice help to indicate the precise meaning of his words, while a letter, which is deprived of all these advantages, is exposed to the malignity of those who put upon it what interpretation they choose. ”

“ A letter may, from a business point of view, make or mar the fortunes of its sender, while none the less surely, from a social standard, will our epistles approve or condemn our claim for consideration. Every position in life, and every occasion which may arise therein, demand more or less exercise of our epistolary powers, and while but few can hope for the grace, the wit, the repartee that sparkle in the missives of a de Staël, a Récamier, a Walpole, a Macaulay, every one can and should learn to write a clear, concise, intelligent, appropriate letter. ”

“ THERE has nothing of late given me so much real trouble and uneasiness, as my having so long deferred writing to you, to make my acknowledgments for your most kind letter, and to assure you that I took every part of your obliging letter in the manner you would wish me to do: I must say, that amid my grief and concern, it gave me a secret pleasure to find that I was thought of by you ”

“ In honour and favour u is silent, and therefore a useless letter, so far as sound is concerned. The u signifies that the word came to us through the French, instead of directly from the Latin. The question is, whether we shall go to the trouble of writing the extra letter in a large class of such words for the sake of the historical association. Perhaps one in a thousand would choose to do so, but others of us are more intent on saving time and ink. ”

“ If doubtful whether to end with 'yours faithfully', or 'yours truly', or 'yours most truly', &c. (there are at least a dozen varieties, before you reach 'yours affectionately') , refer to your correspondent's last letter, and make your winding-up at least as friendly as his: in fact, even if a shade more friendly, it will do no harm! ”

“ The letter itself, as a whole, is now to be considered, and to facilitate its writing there should be some one corner in every home devoted to this purpose. The incentive to letter-writing is always damped, the happy thought we would send our friend takes flight, if we must find the pens upstairs, the paper down, the ink bottle in the pantry, empty or not, as the case may be, and our patience wherever it may be after the search is ended. ”

“ The initial letter o tempts, perhaps with childhood memories of the alphabet, to p-q-r-s-t, etc., or to indefinite words or syllables, actual from my past or possible to my future experience, such as of, off, opine, October, -ology, -ovy, and so on, or, to suggest mere possibilities, such as ontic, oreate, ot, or ow; and every succeeding letter is equally a scene of combat, a place of dangers met—safely met, let us hope, and triumphantly passed. Worthy the boy, or the man, who reaches the end unhurt. ”

“ I have now attained the true art of letter-writing, which we are always told is to express on paper exactly what one would say to the same person by word of mouth. ”

“ Nothing ever was a greater Pleasure than your Letter. I never took so much Pleasure in any Thing, as in thy most loving Letters. "After this Manner all the before-mention'd Sentences may be vary'd by an Interrogation." What in Life could be more pleasant than thy Letters? What has happened to me more sweet, than thy Letter? What has ever delighted me like your last Letter? And after this Manner you may vary almost any Sentence.
Ch.What shall we do now? Au.We will now turn the whole Sentence a little more at large, that we may express one Sentence, by a Circumlocution of many Words. ”

“ They will insist upon judging the book, or rather books, by the letter, whereas we are repeatedly told that the letter is exactly what it is not to be judged by: the letter killeth; the spirit, that is, the hidden meaning, giveth life. ”

“ The letter we all love to receive is one that carries so much of the writer's personality that she seems to be sitting beside us, looking at us directly and talking just as she really would, could she have come on a magic carpet, instead of sending her proxy in ink-made characters on mere paper. ”

“ And from this they see that the sense of the letter of the Word, in which such things are declared, has stored up within itself a spiritual sense, and that these expressions that are used in the sense of the letter in accommodation to man's apprehension and according to his first and general ideas are to be explained in accordance with the spiritual sense. ”

“ In such Letters the Souls of Men should appear undress’d: And in that negligent habit, they may be fit to be seen by one or two in a Chamber, but not to go abroad into the Streets.’ So we have lost the letters of a man whom we can easily believe to have been the best letter-writer of his century and country. ”

“ If you are compelled to choose between writing a letter with false signature vitriolic of any man's integrity or any woman's honor on the one hand, and the writing a letter with a red-hot nail dipped in adder's poison on a sheet woven of leper scales, choose the latter. ”

“ The importance of good letter writing is therefore obvious. Business, personal, and social relations necessitate the writing of letters. We are judged by those letters; and in order that we may be considered businesslike, educated, and cultured, it is necessary that we should be able to write good letters, not only as regards the form but also as regards the subject-matter. ”

“ A letter ought to be simple and natural; regulate your thoughts, and let your expressions appear easy and not studied. Above all, strictly adhere to truth; you violate it, when you use unmeaning compliments, or permit affectionate words to drop from your pen, which are fabricated by the head for selfish purposes, and do not flow from a good heart. ”

“ Do not let us allow our courage to be concerned only with the waiting for letters from each other. But the letters are our life, they are what bring us our joys, our happiness, it is through them that we take delight in the sights of this world and of this time. ”

“ LETTERS. These paper missives are good to dream about: if you dream you receive a great number of letters, it foretells that honors await you: to receive one letter in your dream, denotes that some one is praising you behind your back. If a girl dreams that she receives a love-letter from her beau, it shows that he adores her: a gentleman who has a similar dream of a letter from his sweetheart, may rest satisfied that he only possesses her heart. ”