Page:When You Write a Letter (1922).pdf/88

 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