Page:Hill's manual of social and business forms.djvu/122

80 PARTS OF A LETTER.

Purity of Expression.

Bear in mind the importance, in your correspondence, of using always the most chaste and beautiful language it is possible to command, consistent with ease and naturalness of expression. Especially in the long letters of friendship and love —those missives that reveal the heart—the language should show that the heart is pure. Let your letter be the record of the fancies and mood of the hour; the reflex of your aspirations, your joys, your disappointments; the faithful daguerreotype of your intellectuality and your moral worth.

You little dream how much that letter may influence your future. How much it may give of hope and happiness to the one receiving it. How much it may be examined, thought of, laughed over and commented on; and when you suppose it has long since been destroyed, it may be brought forth, placed in type, and published broadcast to millions of readers.

When, in after years, the letter you now write is given to the world, will there be a word, an expression, in the same that you would blush to see in print? Write in the spirit of cheerfulness. It is unkind to the correspondent to fill the sheet with petty complainings, though there are occasions when the heart filled with grief may confide all its troubles and sorrows to the near friend, and receive in return a letter of sympathy and condolence, containing all the consolation it is possible for the written missive to convey. The length of letters will depend upon circumstances. As a rule, however, business letters should be short; containing just what is necessary to be said, and no more.

Form.

To be written correctly according to general usage, a letter will embrace the following parts: 1st, the date; 2nd, complimentary address; 3rd, body of the letter; 4th, complimentary closing; 6th signature; 6th, superscription.

The above shows the position of the several parts of an ordinary letter.