Etiquette - Emily Post (english novels for students TXT) 📗

writing to.] I know you had nothing fit to eat, and I know that everything was just all wrong! Of course, everything is always so beautifully done at everything you give, I wonder I have the courage to ask you to dine with me."

The Dangerous Letter

A pitfall that those of sharp wit have to guard against is the thoughtless tendency toward writing ill-natured things. Ridicule is a much more amusing medium for the display of a subject than praise, which is always rather bromidic. The amusing person catches foibles and exploits them, and it is easy to forget that wit flashes all too irresistibly at the expense of other people's feelings, and the brilliant tongue is all too often sharpened to rapier point. Admiration for the quickness of a spoken quip, somewhat mitigates its cruelty. The exuberance of the retailer of verbal gossip eliminates the implication of scandals but both quip and gossip become deadly poison when transferred permanently to paper.

Permanence Of Written Emotion

For all emotions written words are a bad medium. The light jesting tone that saves a quip from offense can not be expressed; and remarks that if spoken would amuse, can but piqué and even insult their subject. Without the interpretation of the voice, gaiety becomes levity, raillery becomes accusation. Moreover, words of a passing moment are made to stand forever.

Anger in a letter carries with it the effect of solidified fury; the words spoken in reproof melt with the breath of the speaker once the cause is forgiven. The written words on the page fix them for eternity.

Love in a letter endures likewise forever.

Admonitions from parents to their children may very properly be put on paper—they are meant to endure, and be remembered, but momentary annoyance should never be more than briefly expressed. There is no better way of insuring his letters against being read than for a parent to get into the habit of writing irritable or faultfinding letters to his children.

The Letters Of Two Wives

Do you ever see a man look through a stack of mail, and notice that suddenly his face lights up as he seizes a letter "from home"? He tears it open eagerly, his mouth up-curving at the corners, as he lingers over every word. You know, without being told, that the wife he had to leave behind puts all the best she can devise and save for him into his life as well as on paper!

Do you ever see a man go through his mail and see him suddenly droop—as, though a fog had fallen upon his spirits? Do you see him reluctantly pick out a letter, start to open it, hesitate and then push it aside? His expression says plainly: "I can't face that just now." Then by and by, when his lips have been set in a hard line, he will doggedly open his letter to "see what the trouble is now."

If for once there is no trouble, he sighs with relief, relaxes, and starts the next thing he has to do.

Usually, though, he frowns, looks worried, annoyed, harassed, and you know that every small unpleasantness is punctiliously served to him by one who promised to love and to cherish and who probably thinks she does!

The Letter Everyone Loves To Receive

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.

Let us suppose we have received one of those perfect letters from Mary, one of those letters that seem almost to have written themselves, so easily do the words flow, so bubbling and effortless is their spontaneity. There is a great deal in the letter about Mary, not only about what she has been doing, but what she has been thinking, or perhaps, feeling. And there is a lot about us in the letter—nice things, that make us feel rather pleased about something that we have done, or are likely to do, or that some one has said about us. We know that all things of concern to us are of equal concern to Mary, and though there will be nothing of it in actual words, we are made to feel that we are just as secure in our corner of Mary's heart as ever we were. And we finish the letter with a very vivid remembrance of Mary's sympathy, and a sense of loss in her absence, and a longing for the time when Mary herself may again be sitting on the sofa beside us and telling us all the details her letter can not but leave out.

The Letter No Woman Should Ever Write

The mails carry letters every day that are so many packages of TNT should their contents be exploded by falling into wrong hands. Letters that should never have been written are put in evidence in court rooms every day. Many can not, under any circumstances, be excused; but often silly girls and foolish women write things that sound quite different from what, they innocently, but stupidly, intended.

Few persons, except professional writers, have the least idea of the value of words and the effect that they produce, and the thoughtless letters of emotional women and underbred men add sensation to news items in the press almost daily.

Of course the best advice to a young girl who is impelled to write letters to men, can be put in one word, don't!

However, if you are a young girl or woman, and are determined to write letters to an especial—or any other—man, no matter how innocent your intention may be, there are some things you must remember—remember so intensely that no situation in life, no circumstances, no temptation, can ever make you forget. They are a few set rules, not of etiquette, but of the laws of self-respect:

Never send a letter without reading it over and making sure that you have said nothing that can possibly "sound different" from what you intend to say.

Never so long as you live, write a letter to a man—no matter who he is—that you would be ashamed to see in a newspaper above your signature.

Remember that every word of writing is immutable evidence for or against you, and words which are thoughtlessly put on paper may exist a hundred years hence.

Never write anything that can be construed as sentimental.

Never take a man to task about anything; never ask for explanations; to do so implies too great an intimacy.

Never put a single clinging tentacle into writing. Say nothing ever, that can be construed as demanding, asking, or even being eager for, his attentions!

Always keep in mind and never for one instant forget that a third person, and that the very one you would most object to, may find and read the letter.

One word more: It is not alone "bad form" but laying yourself open to every sort of embarrassment and danger, to "correspond with" a man you slightly know.

Proper Letters Of Love Or Affection

If you are engaged, of course you should write love letters—the most beautiful that you can—but don't write baby-talk and other sillinesses that would make you feel idiotic if the letter were to fall into strange hands.

On the other hand, few can find objection to the natural, friendly and even affectionate letter from a young girl to a young man she has been "brought up" with. It is such a letter as she would write to her brother. There is no hint of coquetry or self-consciousness, no word from first to last that might not be shouted aloud before her whole family. Her letter may begin "Dear" or even "Dearest Jack." Then follows all the "home news" she can think of that might possibly interest him; about the Simpsons' dance, Tom and Pauline's engagement, how many trout Bill Henderson got at Duck Brook, how furious Mrs. Davis was because some distinguished visitor accepted Mrs. Brown's dinner instead of hers, how the new people who have moved onto the Rush farm don't know the first thing about farming, and so on.

Perhaps there will be one "personal" line such as "we all missed you at the picnic on Wednesday—Ollie made the flap-jacks and they were too awful! Every one groaned: 'If Jack were only here!'" Or, "we all hope you are coming back in time for the Towns' dance. Kate has at last inveigled her mother into letting her have an all-black dress which we rather suspect was bought with the especial purpose of impressing you with her advanced age and dignity! Mother came in just as I wrote this and says to tell you she has a new recipe for chocolate cake that is even better than her old one, and that you had better have a piece added to your belt before you come home. Carrie will write you very soon, she says, and we all send love.