How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters), Mary Owens Crowther [book series to read txt] 📗
- Author: Mary Owens Crowther
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Book online «How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters), Mary Owens Crowther [book series to read txt] 📗». Author Mary Owens Crowther
(Mrs. John Evans)
Recommendation for a servant
June 14, 1922.
This is to certify that Katrina Hellman has been in my employ as assistant nurse for one year. During that period I have found her honest, capable, and reliable. I can give her an unqualified recommendation.
K. G. Evans.
(Mrs. John Evans)
For information concerning a servant
5300 Deming Place
Chicago, Ill.,
May 9, 1922.
Mrs. John Evans,
500 Park Avenue,
New York.
Dear Madam:
I hope you will pardon me, but I should be very much indebted to you for any facts concerning Gaston Duval, who has been in your employ as chauffeur. If you will give me this information I shall treat it as confidential.
Yours very truly,
Cecelia B. Duke.
(Mrs. Samuel Duke)
Answers to request for information concerning a servant
500 Park Avenue,
New York City,
May 13, 1922.
Mrs. Samuel Duke,
5300 Deming Place,
Chicago, Ill.
Dear Madam:
I have your inquiry of May the ninth concerning my former chauffeur, Gaston Duval.
I am very glad to recommend him. He is sober and honest, and I always found him thoroughly dependable during his fifteen months in my employ. He drives well and is an expert mechanician.
Yours very truly,
K. G. Evans,
(Mrs. John Evans)
500 Park Avenue,
New York, N. Y.,
May 13, 1922.
Mrs. Samuel Duke,
5300 Deming Place,
Chicago, Ill.
Dear Madam:
I have your inquiry of May the ninth concerning my former chauffeur, Gaston Duval.
I hope that you will not think me discourteous but I should much prefer not to discuss him.
Yours very truly,
K. G. Evans.
(Mrs. John Evans)
(In letters which in effect decline to give a recommendation it is wiser not to set out facts or even actually to decline to give the recommendation. See Chapter XI on the Law of Letters. The following letter to a servant, which is an indirect way of declining to recommend, is on the danger line.)
To a servant
Harbor View,
Long Island,
August 29, 1921.
My dear Margaret,
Mrs. Hubert Forbes has written me concerning your qualifications as cook, and asks if I would recommend you in every way. Also I have your request to me for a reference.
With regard to your skill in cooking there can be no question. I can recommend you as having served me for two years and I can vouch for your honesty. But, as you know, you are not to be depended on—for instance, to return promptly after your days off or to do any work at all during your frequent disputes with the butler.
This I have told Mrs. Forbes. I could not conscientiously do otherwise; but I have asked that she try you in the hope that you have decided to remedy these faults.
Very truly yours,
F. B. Scott.
(Mrs. Harrison Scott)
Harbor View, L. I.,
August 29, 1921.
Mrs. Hubert Forbes,
Bayshore, L. I.
My dear Mrs. Forbes:
I have your letter of August twenty-fifth concerning my former cook, Margaret Dickson. She is an extremely good cook. She was with me for two years, and I can vouch for her honesty, but she is not to be depended on—for instance, to return promptly after her days off or to do any work during her frequent quarrels with the butler. But she seems anxious to improve, and if you would care to give her a trial, I think she might be satisfactory in new surroundings.
I hope this reply will answer your questions.
Very truly yours,
Flora B. Scott.
Letter to a former servant
Dear Delia,
If you will not be too busy next week, will you come out and take care of the children for three or four days? Mr. Stone and I expect to be away. I am sure your husband can spare you. You will be surprised at the way Jack is growing. He often speaks of you.
Let me know immediately.
Cordially yours,
B. L. Stone.
(Note the signature—the use of initials instead of writing the full name.)
Inquiry concerning house for rental
48 Cottage Road,
Somerville, Mass.,
April 8, 1921.
Schuyler Realty Company,
49 Fulton Street,
Brooklyn, N. Y.
Gentlemen:
Will you be good enough to send me the following information concerning the house at 28 Bedford Park which you have advertised for rental:
Location of the house with regard to subway and L station, and the nearest public school. General character of the immediate neighborhood.
Distance to the nearest Methodist Episcopal Church.
Condition and kind of plumbing in each of the three bathrooms.
Make of furnace and the amount of coal necessary to heat the house.
Is the house completely screened? Are there awnings?
The floors—of what wood and in what condition are they?
Is the cellar dry?
Where is the laundry?
When can the house be ready for occupancy?
I should like to have the facts as soon as you can furnish them.
Very truly yours,
George M. Hall.
Inquiry concerning house for purchase
345 Amsterdam Avenue,
Philadelphia, Pa.,
May 10, 1921.
Wheaton Manor Development Co.,
Dobbs Ferry, New York.
Gentlemen:
Will you let me know without delay, if possible, if you have any property in your immediate neighborhood fulfilling the following requirements:
House—Twelve rooms, four bathrooms, and sun porch. A modern house of stucco and half-timber construction preferred.
Ground—about five acres, part woodland, part cleared; lawn, vegetable, and flower garden.
Distance from railroad station—not more than fifteen minutes' ride.
I do not want to pay more than $25,000.
I shall be here until the twentieth of the month. After that a reply will reach me at the Hotel Pennsylvania, New York.
Very truly yours,
Jerome Hutchinson.
Inquiry concerning a child at school:
1842 Riverside Drive,
New York, N. Y.,
February 10, 1922.
My dear Professor Ritchie,
My son John's report for the term just closed is far from satisfactory. While I do not expect perfection from him, I think—in fact, I know—he is capable of better work than is shown by his present rating.
I observe that he did not pass in mathematics, a subject in which he was always first in the elementary school. My first thought was that possibly he was not physically well, but his activity in athletics would seem to refute this. This leads me to another thought—perhaps he is giving too much time and interest to athletics. What is your opinion and what course would you recommend?
Would it be possible by coaching to have him make up the required averages?
As I am leaving New York in two weeks for an extended trip, I would like to take some steps toward improving his scholarship status. Will you let me hear from you as soon as possible?
Very truly yours,
John Crandall.
Letter ordering Easter gifts from a magazine shopping service
Quogue, Long Island,
March 27, 1922.
Standard Shopping Service,
100 West 38th Street,
New York, N. Y.
Gentlemen:
I enclose my check for $25.00 for which please send by express the following articles to
Miss Dorothea Allen
Sunrise Lodge
Highland, Pa.
Two sterling silver candlesticks in Colonial pattern at $12.50 each, on Page 178, March issue.
Or if you cannot secure them, will you purchase as second choice
Two jars in Kashan ware, with blue as the predominating color?
Very truly yours,
Laura Waite.
(Mrs. Herbert Waite)
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CHAPTER VII THE BUSINESS LETTERA reporter was sent out on a big story—one of the biggest that had broken in many a day. He came back into the office about eight o'clock all afire with his story. He was going to make a reputation on the writing of it. He wanted to start off with a smashing first paragraph—the kind of lead that could not help being read. He knew just what he was going to say; the first half-dozen lines fairly wrote themselves on the typewriter. Then he read them over. They did not seem quite so clever and compelling as he had thought. He pulled the sheet out and started another. By half-past ten he was in the midst of a sea of copy paper—but he had not yet attained a first paragraph.
The City Editor—one of the famous old Sun school—grew anxious. The paper could not wait until inspiration had matured. He walked quietly over to the young man and touching him on the shoulder he said:
"Just one little word after another, son."
And that is a good thought to carry into the composition of a business or any other kind of letter. The letter is written to convey some sort of idea. It will not perfectly convey the idea. Words have their limitations. It will not invariably produce upon the reader the effect that the writer desires. You may have heard of "irresistible" letters—sales letters that would sell electric fans to Esquimaux or ice skates to Hawaiians, collection letters that make the thickest skinned debtor remit by return mail, and other kinds of resultful, masterful letters that pierce to the very soul. There may be such letters. I doubt it. And certainly it is not worth while trying to concoct them. They are the outpourings of genius. The average letter writer, trying to be a genius, deludes only himself—he just becomes queer, he takes to unusual words, constructions, and arrangements. He puts style before thought—he thinks that the way he writes is more important than what he writes. The writer of the business letter does well to avoid "cleverness"—to avoid it as a frightful and devastating disease.
The purpose of a business letter is to convey a thought that will lead to some kind of action—immediately or remotely. Therefore there are only two rules of importance in the composition of the business letter.
The first is: Know what you want to say.
The second is: Say it.
And the saying is not a complicated affair—it is a matter of "one little word after another."
Business letters may be divided into two general classes:
(1) Where it is assumed that the recipient will want to read the letter,
(2) Where it is assumed that the recipient will not want to read the letter.
The first class comprises the ordinary run of business correspondence. If I write to John Smith asking him for the price of a certain kind of chair, Smith can assume in his reply that I really want that information and hence he will give it to me courteously and concisely with whatever comment on the side may seem necessary, as, for instance, the fact that this particular type of chair is not one that Smith would care to recommend and that Style X, costing $12.00, would be better.
The ordinary business letter is either too wordy or too curt; it either loses the subject in a mass of words or loses the reader by offensive abruptness. Some letters gush upon the most ordinary of subjects; they are interspersed with friendly ejaculations such as "Now, my dear Mr. Jones," and give the impression that if one ever got
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