Write the date near the right-hand side of the first page, and place it about two lines higher than the two or three words of greeting or accosting with which letters usually commence. Begin the first sentence a little below those words, and farther toward the right than the lines that are to follow. It is well in dating every letter to give always your exact residence—that is, not only the town you live in, but the number and street. If your correspondent has had but one notification of your present place of abode, she may have forgotten the number, and even the street. Your letter containing it may not be at hand as a reference, and the answer may, in consequence, be misdirected—or directed in so vague a manner that it will never reach you. We have known much inconvenience (and indeed loss) ensue from not specifying with the date of each letter the exact dwelling-place of the writer. But if it is always indicated at the top of every one, a reference to any one of your letters will furnish your proper address. If you are in the country, where there are no streets or numbered houses, give the name of the estate and that of the nearest post-town; also the county and state. All this will occupy a long line, but you will find the advantage. If your letter fills more than one sheet, number each page. Should you have no envelope, leave, on the inside of the third page, two blank spaces where the seal is to come. These spaces should be left rather too large than too small. Lest you should tear the letter in breaking it open, it is best to cut round the seal. We have seen letters that were actually illegible from the paleness of the ink. If you write from your own house this is inexcusable, as you ought always to be well supplied with that indispensable article; and in a city you can easily send to a stationer's and buy it. It is still better to make it yourself; than which nothing is more easy. The following receipt we know, by experience, to be superlative. Try it.
Buy at a druggist's four ounces of the best blue Aleppo nut-galls; half an ounce of green copperas; and half an ounce of clean, white gum-arabic. These three articles must be pulverized in a mortar. Put them into a large, clean, white-ware pitcher, and pour on a quart of boiling water. Stir the whole with a stick that will reach to the bottom, and set the pitcher in a warm place; covering it lightly with a folded newspaper. In about an hour, stir it again very hard; and repeat the stirring several times during the day. Let it remain in the pitcher several days, or a week, till it becomes an excellent black; the blackening will be accelerated by keeping the pitcher in the sun; for instance, in a sunny balcony. Stir it, down to the bottom, two or three times a day—always with a stick. Use nothing of metal in making this ink. When it is very black, and writes well, pour it off carefully from the bottom, (which must have rested undisturbed for two or three hours previous,) passing it through a funnel into pint-bottles. Before you cork them, put into each a large tea-spoonful of brandy, to prevent moulding, or a few drops of lavender. A small tea-spoonful of cloves, (slightly broken,) placed in the bottom of each bottle, before the ink is poured in, will answer the same purpose. Scouring the pitcher with soap and sand, after throwing away the dregs of the ink, will completely clear off the stains.
Ink-stands should be washed out, before they are filled anew.
There is no ink superior to this in blackness or smoothness. You can make it at less than half the cost of that which you buy in the shops. It looks blacker the next day after using, and never fades. If it becomes rather too thick, dilute it slightly with water, and stir it down to the bottom.
Never use blue ink. If the letter chances to get wet, the writing will be effaced. Serious losses have resulted from business letters being written in blue ink.
If you make a mistake in a word, draw your pen through it, or score it so as to be quite illegible, and then interline the correction, placing a caret beneath. This will be better than scratching out the error with your penknife, and afterward trying to write a new word in the identical place; an attempt which rarely succeeds, even with the aid of pounce-powder, which is pulverized gum-sandarac.
At the end of the letter, somewhat lower than your signature, (which should be very near the right-hand edge of the page,) add the name and address of the person for whom the letter is designed, and to whom it will thus find its way, even if the envelope should be defaced, or torn off and lost. Write your own name rather larger than your usual hand, and put a dot or dash after it.
Some of the ensuing paragraphs are taken (with permission of the publisher) from a former work of the author's.
In folding a letter, let the breadth (from left to right) far exceed the height. A letter folded tall is ridiculous, and one verging towards squareness looks very awkward. It is well to use a folder (or paper-knife) to press along the edges of the folds, that they may be smooth and straight. If one is looser than another, or if there is the slightest narrowing in, or widening out, toward the edge of the turn-over, the letter will have an irregular, unsightly appearance. Pieces of ruled lines may be so cut that you can slip them under the back of a letter after it is folded, and then you will be in no danger of writing the direction crooked, or uneven.
Write the name of your correspondent about the middle of the back, and very clearly and distinctly. Then give the number and street on the next line, a little nearer to the right. Then the town in large letters, extending still nearer to the right. If a country-town, give next (in letters a little smaller) the name of the county in which it is situated. This is very necessary, as in some of our states there is more than one town of the same name, and "Washingtons" all over the Union. Lastly, at the very bottom, and close to the right, indicate the state or district by its usual abbreviation,—for instance, Me. for Maine[14]—N. H. New Hampshire—Vt. Vermont—Mass. Massachusetts—R. I. Rhode Island—Ct. or Conn. Connecticut—N. Y. New York—N. J. New Jersey—Pa. or Penna. Pennsylvania—Del. Delaware—Md. Maryland—Va. Virginia—N. C. North Carolina—S. C. South Carolina—Ga. or Geo. Georgia—Ala. Alabama—Miss. Mississippi—Mo. Missouri—La. Louisiana—Tenn. Tennessee—Ky. Kentucky—O. Ohio—Ind. Indiana—Ill. Illinois—Mich. Michigan—Ark. Arkansas—Wis. Wisconsin—Io. Iowa—Tex. Texas—Flo. Florida—Cal. California—Or. Oregon—Minn. Minnesota—Utah—D. C. District of Columbia.