know more about words and about books. But this vacuum can be filled by
earnest thought and serious application, system, and thoroughness. It
takes you a long time to play a mazurka of Chopin’s well. It takes you a
long time even to learn compositions less important. A young woman sits
many months before a piano before she learns to drag “Home, Sweet Home!”
through the eye of a needle; and then to flatten out again _con
expressione_; and then to chase it up to the last key until it seems to
be lost in a still, small protest; and then to bring it to life and send
it thundering up and down, as if it were chased by lightning. How easy
it all seems, and how delighted we are when our old friend, “Home, Sweet
Home!” appears again in its original form! But there was a time when it
was not easy—a time when the counting of one and two and three was not
easy. So it is with the art of writing. It is not easy in the beginning.
It may be easy to make grandiloquent similes about “prairie-grass” and
the “eternal light which cheers,” etc.; but that is just like beginning
to play snatches of a grand march before one knows the scales.
To begin to write well, one must cut off all the useless leaves that
obscure the fruit, which is the thought, and keep the sun from it.
Figures should be used sparingly. One metaphor that blazes at the climax
of an article after many pages of simplicity is worth half a hundred
scattered wherever they happen to fall. It is a white diamond as
compared to a handful of garnets.
VI. Letter-writing.
There is no art so important in the conduct of our modern life, after
the art of conversation, as the art of letter-writing. A young man who
shows a good education and careful training in his letters puts his foot
on the first round of the ladder of success. If, in addition to this, he
can acquire early in life the power of expressing himself easily and
gracefully, he can get what he wants in eight cases out of ten. Very few
people indeed can resist a cleverly written letter.
In the old times, when there was no Civil Service and Congressmen made
their appointments to West Point at their own sweet will, an applicant’s
fate was often decided by his letters. There is a story told of Thaddeus
Stevens, a famous statesman of thirty years ago, that he once rejected
an applicant for admission to the military school. This applicant met
him one day in a corridor of the Capitol and remonstrated violently.
“Your favoritism is marked, Mr. Stevens,” he said; “you have blasted my
career from mere party prejudice.”
The legislator retorted, “I would not give an appointment to any blasted
fool who spells ‘until’ with two ‘ll’s’ and ‘till’ with one.” And the
disappointed aspirant went home to look into his dictionary.
Such trifles as this make the sum of life. A man’s letter is to most
educated people an index of the man himself. His card is looked on in
the same light in polite society. But a man’s letter is more important
than his visiting-card, though the character of the latter cannot be
altogether neglected.
It is better to be too exquisite in your carefulness about your letters
than in the slightest degree careless. The art of letter-writing comes
from knowledge and constant practice.
Your letters, now, ought to be careful works of art.
Intelligent—remember I say _intelligent_—care is the basis of all
perfection; and perfection in small things means success in great. In
our world the specialist, the man who does at least one thing as well as
he can, is sure to succeed; and so overcrowded are the avenues to
success becoming that a man to succeed must be a specialist and know how
to do at least one thing better than his fellow-men.
If you happen to have a rich father, you may say, “It does not make much
difference; I shall have an easy time of it all my life. I can spell
‘applicant’ with two ‘c’s’ if I like and it will not make any
difference.”
This is a very foolish idea. The richer you are, the greater will be
your responsibilities, the more will you be criticised and found fault
with, and you will find it will take all your ability to keep together
or to spend wisely what your father has acquired. The late John Jacob
Astor worked harder than any of his clerks; in the street he looked
careworn and preoccupied; and he often lamented that poor men did not
know how hard it was to be rich. His hearers often felt that they would
like to exchange hardships with him. But he never, in spite of his
sorrows, gave them a chance. It is true, however, that a rich man needs
careful education even more than a poor man. And even politicians have
to spell decently. You have perhaps heard of the man who announced in a
letter that he was a “g-r-a-t-e-r man than Grant.”
Usage decrees certain forms in the writing of letters; and the knowledge
and practice of these forms are absolutely necessary. For instance, one
must be very particular to give each man his title. Although we
Americans are supposed to despise titles, the frequency with which they
are borrowed in this country shows that we are not free from a weakness
for them. You have perhaps heard the old story of the man who entered a
country tavern in Kentucky and called out to a friend, “Major!” Twenty
majors at once arose.
You will find that if you desire to keep the regard of your friends you
must be careful in letter-writing to give each man his title. Every man
over twenty-one years of age is “Esquire” in this country. Plain “Mr.”
will do for young people—except the youngest “juniors,” who are only
“Masters;” everybody else, from the lawyer, who is rightly entitled to
“Esquire,” to the hod-carrier, must have that title affixed to his name,
or he feels that the man who writes to him is guilty of a disrespect. A
member of Congress, of the Senate of the United States, of the State
legislatures, has “Honorable” prefixed to his Christian name, and he
does not like you to forget it. But a member of the British Parliament
is never called “Honorable.” When Mr. Parnell and Mr. William O’Brien,
both members of Parliament, were here, this rule was not observed, and
they found themselves titled, much to their amazement, “Honorable.”
Except in business letters, it is better not to abbreviate anything. Do
not write “Jno.” for “John,” or “Wm.” for “William.” “Mister” is always
shortened into “Mr.,” and “Mistress” into “Mrs.,” which custom
pronounces “Missus.” If one is addressing an archbishop, one writes,
“The Most Reverend Archbishop;” a bishop, “The Right Reverend;” and a
priest, “The Reverend”—always “The Reverend,” never “Rev.”
Titles such as “A.M.,” “B.A.,” “LL.D.,” are not generally put on the
envelopes of letters, unless the business of the writer has something to
do with the scholarly position of the person addressed. If, for
instance, I write to a Doctor of Laws and Letters, asking him to dinner,
I do not put LL.D. after his name; but if I am asking him to tell me
something about Greek accents, or to solve a question of literature, I,
of course, write his title after his name.
To put one’s knife into one’s mouth means social exile; there is only
one other infraction of social rules considered more damning, and this
is the writing of an anonymous letter. It is understood, in good
society, that a man who would write a letter which he is afraid to sign
with his own name would lie or steal. And I believe he would. If he
happen to be found out—and there are no secrets in this world—he will be
cut dead by every man and woman for whom he has any respect. If he
belong to a decent club, the club will drop him, and he will be
blackballed by every club he tries to enter. By the very act of writing
such a letter he brands himself a coward. And if the letter be a
malicious one, he confesses himself in every line of it a scoundrel. A
man capable of such a thing shows it in his face, above all in his eyes,
for nature cannot keep such a secret.
Another sin against good manners, which young people sometimes
thoughtlessly commit, is the writing to people whom they do not know.
This is merely an impertinence; it is not a crime; the persons that get
such letters simply look on the senders as fools, not as cowards or
scoundrels.
Usage at the present time decrees that all social letters should be
written on _unruled_ paper, and that, if possible, the envelope should
be square. An oblong envelope will do, but a square one is considered to
be the better of the two; the paper should be folded to fit under. The
envelope and the paper should always be as good as you can buy. Money is
never wasted on excellent paper and envelopes. It is one of the marks of
a gentleman to have his paper and envelopes as spotless and well made as
his collar and cuffs.
A man ought never to use colored paper, or paper with a monogram or a
crest or coat-of-arms on it. If you happen to have a coat-of-arms or a
crest, keep it at home; anybody in this country who wants it can get it.
White paper and black ink should be used by men; leave the flowers and
the monograms and the pink, blue, and black paper to the ladies. It is
just as much out of place for one of us to write on pink paper as to
wear a bracelet.
Bad spelling is a social crime and a business crime, too. No business
house will employ in any important position a young man who spells
badly. He may become a porter or a janitor, but he can never rise above
that if he cannot spell.
In social letters or notes, one misspelled word is like a discord in
music. It is as if the big drum were to come in at the wrong time and
spoil a cornet solo, or a careless stroke ruin a fine regatta. When
dictionaries are so numerous, bad spelling is unpardonable, and it is
seldom pardoned.
One of the worst possible breaches of good manners is to write a
careless letter to any one to whom you owe affection and respect.
Nothing is too good for your father or mother—nothing on this earth.
When you begin to think otherwise, you may be certain that _you_ are
growing unworthy of affection and respect.
There is a story told of one of the greatest soldiers that this country
ever knew, who, though he happened to fight against us, deserves our
most respectful homage; this brave soldier was the Confederate General
Sidney Johnston. A soldier had been arrested as a traitor on the eve of
a battle. The testimony was against him; there was no time to sift it,
and General Johnston ordered him to be shot before the assembled army. A
comrade who believed in him, but who had no evidence in his favor, made
a last appeal. When the soldier was arrested, he had been in the act of
writing a letter to his father. He begged this comrade to secure it and
send it home, giving him permission to read it. The comrade read it and
took it to General Johnston. It was an honest, loving letter such as a
good son would write to a kind father. It was carefully written. General
Johnston read it, expecting to find some sign of treason there. He read
it twice; and then he said to the comrade: “Why did you bring this to
me?”
“To show you, general,” the soldier answered, “that a man who could
write such a letter to his father on the eve of battle could not have
the heart of a traitor.”
“You are right,” General Johnston said, after a pause; “let the man be
released.”
He was released, and later it was discovered that he had been wrongly
suspected. He was killed in that battle. Such a son would rather have
died a hundred times than have such a father know that he had been shot
or hanged as a traitor.
The letters we write home ought to be as carefully written as possible.
_There is nothing too good for your father or mother._ They may not
always tell you so; but you may be sure that a well-written and
affectionate letter from you brightens life very much for them. Have you
ever seen a father who had a boy at school draw from his pocket a son’s
letter and show it to his friends with eyes glistening with pleasure? I
have. “There’s a boy for you!” he says. “There is a manly, cheerful
letter written to _me_, sir, and written as well as any man in this
country can write it!” If you have ever seen a father in that proud and
happy mood, you know how your father feels when you treat him with the
consideration which is his due. Your mothers treasure your letters and
give them a value they do not, I am afraid, often really possess. If you
desire to appear well before the world, begin by correcting and
improving yourself at school and out of school. A young man who writes a
slovenly letter to his parents will probably drop into carelessness when
he writes formal letters to people outside his domestic circle.
It is a good rule to answer every letter during the week of its receipt.
It is as rude to refuse to answer a question politely put as to leave a
letter without an answer—provided the writer of the letter is a person
you know.
Some young people are capable of addressing the President as “Dear
Friend,” or of doing what, according to a certain authority, a young
person did in Baltimore. This uncouth young person was presented to
Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore. “Hello, Arch.!” he said—and I
fear that his friends who were present wished that he were dead.
“Dear Sir” is always a proper form to begin a letter with to anybody
older than ourselves, or to anybody we do not know intimately. And if we
begin by “Dear Sir,” we should not end with “Yours most affectionately.”
“Yours respectfully” or “Yours sincerely” would be the better form. To
end a letter with “Yours, etc.,” is justly considered in the worst
possible taste; and it is almost as bad as to begin a letter with
“Friend Jones,” or “Friend Smith,” or “Friend John,” or “Tom.” The
Quakers address one another as “friend;” we do not. Begin with “Dear
John” or “Dear Tom,” or even “Dear Jones” or “Dear Brown,” if you like,
but do not use the prefix “friend.” In writing to an entire stranger,
one may use the third person, or begin with “Sir” or “Madam.” Suppose,
for instance, you want some information from a librarian you do not know
personally. You may write in this way:
“Mr. Berry would be much obliged to Mr. Bibliophile for Dr. St.
George Mivart’s book on ‘The Cat,’ which he will return as soon as
possible.”
Or Mr. Berry would say:
“SIR: I should be much obliged if you would lend me Dr. St. George
Mivart’s book on ‘The Cat.’
“Yours respectfully.”
No man in decent society ever puts “Mr.” before his own name, except on
visiting-cards. There, usage has made it proper. A married lady or a
young girl always has “Mrs.” or “Miss” on her cards, and, of late, men
have got into the habit of putting “Mr.” on theirs. No man of taste ever
puts “Mr.” before or “Esq.”[1] after his own name when signing a letter.
Footnote 1:
The title Esq. really belongs only to those connected with the legal
profession, but republican usage has much extended it.
Another fault against taste is a habit—prevalent only in America—of
writing social letters under business headings. Here is an example:
J. J. ROBINSON & CO.,
New York.
Manufacturers and Dealers in the Newest Styles
of Coffins, Caskets, and Embalming Fluids.
Orders carefully attended to.
All payments C.O.D.
No deductions for damages allowed after thirty days.
Under that heading appears a note of congratulation:
“DEAR TOM: I hasten to congratulate you on your marriage. Believe
me, I wish you every blessing, and if you should ever need anything
in my line, you will always receive the greatest possible reduction
in price. May you live long and prosper!
“Yours very affectionately,
“J. J. ROBINSON.”
This is an extreme example, I admit; but who has not seen social notes
written under business headings just as incongruous? When we write to
anybody not on business, let us use spotless white paper without lines;
let the paper and envelopes be as thick as possible; and let us not put
any ornamental flower, or crest, or coat-of-arms, or any bit of nonsense
at the top of our letters. The address ought to be written plainly at
the head of our letter-paper, or printed if you will. And if we begin a
letter with “Dear Sir,” we ought to write in the left-hand corner of the
last sheet the name of the person to whom the letter is addressed. But
if we begin a letter with “Dear Mr. Robinson,” it is not necessary to
write Mr. Robinson’s name again. If a man gets an invitation written in
the third person he must answer it in the third person. If
“Mrs. J. J. Smith requests the pleasure of Mr. J. J. Jones’s company
at dinner on Wednesday, April 23, at seven o’clock,”
young Mr. J. J. Jones would stamp himself as ignorant of the ways of
society if he wrote back:
“DEAR MRS. SMITH: I will come, of course. If I am a little late,
keep something on the fire for me. I shall be umpire at a base-ball
match that afternoon, and I shall be hungry. Good-by.
“Yours devotedly,
“J. J. JONES.”
You may be sure that if young Mr. Jones should put in an appearance
after that note he would find the door closed in his face.
An invitation to dinner must be accepted or declined on the day it is
received. One is not permitted to say he will come if he can. He must
say Yes or No at once. The words “polite,” “genteel,” and “present
compliments” are no longer used. “Your kind invitation” now takes the
place of “your polite invitation;” and “genteel” is out of date. The
letters “R. S. V. P.” are no longer put on notes or cards. It is thought
it is not necessary to tell, in French, people to “answer, if you
please.” All well-educated people are pleased to answer without being
told to do so. The custom of putting “R. S. V. P.” in a note is as much
out of fashion as that of drawing off a glove when one shakes hands. In
the olden times, when men wore armor, a hand clothed in a steel or iron
gauntlet was not pleasant to touch. There was then a reason why a man
should draw off his glove when he extended his hand to another,
especially if that other happened to be a lady. But the reason for the
custom has gone by; and it is not necessary to draw off one’s glove now
when one shakes hands.
But to return to the subject of letter-writing. If you are addressing a
Doctor of Medicine or Divinity, you may put “Esq.” after his name in
addition to his title “M.D.” or “D.D.” but it is a senseless custom. But
“Mr.” and “Esq.” before and after a man’s name sends the writer, in the
estimation of well-bred people, to “the bottom of the sea.” Paper with
gilt edges is never used; in fact, a man must not have anything about
him that is merely pretty. Usage decrees that he may wear a flower in
his button-hole—and Americans are becoming as fond of flowers as the
ancient Romans; but farther than that he may not go, in the way of the
merely ornamental, either in his stationery or his clothes.
It is the fashion now to fasten envelopes with wax and to use a seal;
but it is not at all necessary, though there are many who prefer it, as
they object to get a letter which has been “licked” to make its edges
stick.
Begin, in addressing a stranger, with “Madam” or “Sir.” “Miss” by itself
is never used. After a second letter has been received, “Dear Madam” or
“Dear Sir” may be used. Conclude all formal letters with “Yours truly,”
or “Sincerely yours,” not “Affectionately yours.” Sign your full name
when writing to a friend or an equal. Do not write “T. F. Robinson” or
“T. T. Smith;” write your name out as if you were not ashamed of it.
Put your address at the head of your letters, and if you make a blot,
tear up the paper. A dirty letter sent, even with an apology, is as bad
a breach of good manners as the extending of a dirty hand. Answer at
once any letter in which information is asked. Do not write to people
you do not know or answer advertisements in the papers “for fun.” A man
that knows the world never does this. These advertisements often hide
traps, and a man may get into them merely by writing a letter. And the
kind of “fun” which ends in a man’s being pursued by vulgar postal cards
and letters wherever he goes does not pay.
In writing a letter, do not begin too close to the top of the page, or
too far down towards the middle. Do not abbreviate when you can help it;
you may write “Dr.” for “Doctor.”
Do not put a yellow envelope over a sheet of white note-paper. It is not
necessary to leave _wide_ margin at the left-hand side. A habit now is
to write only on one side of the paper; to begin your letter on the
first page, then to go to the third, then back to the second, ending, if
you have a great deal to say, on the fourth. A late fad is to jump from
the first to the fourth.
With a good dictionary at his elbow, black ink, white paper, a clear
head, and a remembrance of the rules and prohibitions I have given, any
young man cannot fail, if he write, to impress all who receive his
letters with the fact that he is well-bred.
VII. What to Read.
Young people who determine to study English literature seriously
sometimes find themselves discouraged by the multitude of books;
consequently they get into an idle way of accepting opinions at second
hand—the ready-made opinions of the text-book. In order to study English
literature, it is not necessary to read many books; but it is necessary
to read a few books carefully. The evident insincerity of some of the
people who “go in” for literary culture has given the humorous
paragrapher, often on the verge of paresis from trying to be funny every
day, many a straw to grasp at. There is no doubt that some of his gibes
and sneers are deserved, and that others, undeserved, serve as cheap
stock in trade for people who are too idle or too stupid to take any
interest in literary matters.
Literary insincerity and pretension are sufficiently bad, but they are
not worse than the superficial and silly jeers at poetry and art in the
line of the worn-out witticisms about the “spring poet” and the
“mother-in-law.”
The young woman who thinks it the proper thing to go into ecstasies over
Robert Browning without having read a line of the poet’s work, except,
perhaps, “How They Carried the News from Ghent to Aix,” is foolish
enough; but is the man who sneers at Browning and knows even less about
him any better? The earnest student of literature makes no pretensions.
He reads a few books well, and by that obtains the key to the
understanding of all others. He does not pretend to admire epics he has
not read. He knows, of course, that the _Nibelungenlied_ is the great
German epic; but he does not talk about it as if he had studied and
weighed every line. If he finds that the _Inferno_ of Dante is more
interesting than the _Paradiso_, he says so without fear, and he does
not express ready-made opinions without having probed them. If the
perfection of good manners is simplicity, the perfection of literary
culture is sincerity.
Among Catholics there sometimes crops out a kind of insincerity which
almost amounts to snobbishness. It is the tendency to praise no book
until it has had a non-Catholic approbation. Now that Dr. Gasquet’s
remarkable volume on the suppression of the English monasteries and
Father Bridgett’s “Sir Thomas More” have received the highest praise in
England and swept Mr. Froude’s historical rubbish aside, there are
Catholics who will not hesitate to respect them, although they did
hesitate before the popular laudation was given to these two great
books.
When a reader has begun to acquire the rudiments of literary taste, he
ought to choose the books he likes; but he cannot be trusted to choose
books for himself until he has—perhaps with some labor—gained taste. All
men are born with taste very unequally developed. A man cannot, I
repeat, hope to gain a correct judgment in literary matters unless he
works for it.
Mr. Frederick Harrison says: “When will men understand that the reading
of great books is a faculty to be acquired, not a natural gift, at least
to those who are spoiled by our current education and habits of life? An
insatiable appetite for new novels makes it as hard to read a
masterpiece as it seems to a Parisian boulevardier to live in a quiet
country. Until a man can really enjoy a draught of clear water bubbling
from a mountain-side, his taste is in an unwholesome state. To
understand a great national poet, such as Dante, Calderon, Corneille, or
Goethe, is to know other types of human civilization in ways which a
library of histories does not sufficiently teach.”
Mr. Harrison is right. It is not always easy to like good books; but it
is easier to train the young to like them than to cleanse the perverted
taste of the older. The chief business of the teacher of literature
ought to be the cultivation of taste. At his best, he can do no more
than that; at his worst, he can fill the head of the student with mere
names and dates and undigested opinions.