It is also wrong to say "two spoonsful," instead of two spoonfuls. Thus, "two spoonsful of milk" seems to imply two separate spoons with milk in each; while "two spoonfuls of milk" gives the true idea—one spoon twice filled.
Avoid in writing, as in talking, all words that do not express the true meaning. We are sorry to say that sometimes even among educated people, when attempting smartness or wit, we find a sort of conventional slang that has, in truth, a strong tinge of vulgarity, being the wilful substitution of bad words or bad phrases for good ones. When we find them issuing from the lips or the pen of a lady, we fear she is unfortunate in a reprobate husband, or brother, from whom she must have learnt them. Yet even reprobates dislike to hear their wives and sisters talking coarsely.
Unless you know that your correspondent is well versed in French, refrain from interlarding your letters with Gallic words or phrases.
Do not introduce long quotations from poetry. Three or four lines of verse are sufficient. One line, or two, are better still. Write them rather smaller than your usual hand, and leave a space at the beginning and end; marking their commencement and termination with inverted commas, thus “ ”.
One of our young relatives when seven or eight years old, tried her hand at story-writing. In finishing the history of a naughty girl, much addicted to falsehood, the terminating sentence ran thus:—
"Arabella did not cure herself of this fault; but when she grew up, and became an authoress, she never marked her quotations."
If your letter is longer than can be comprised in one sheet, number the pages, placing the number near the upper corner. If engaged in a regular correspondence on business or other things, or in writing from a foreign country to your family at home, number not only the pages, but the letter itself, putting that figure in the centre at the top of the first page. Thus, if your friend, having received No. 10, finds the next letter that comes to hand is No. 12, she will know that No. 11 is missing, and will tell you so in her reply. Keep a memorandum of the letters you have sent, that you may know how to number the next. Before commencing a long letter, it is well to put down on a slip of paper, a list of the subjects you intend to write on.
Unless to persons living in the same house, do not enclose one letter in another. And even then, it is not always safe to do so. Let each letter be transmitted on its own account, by mail, with its own full direction, and its own post-office stamp. We know an instance where the peace of a family was entirely ruined by one of its members suppressing enclosed letters. Confide to no one the delivery of an important letter intended for another person. It is better to trust to the mail, and send a duplicate by the next post.
To break the seal of a letter directed to another person is punishable by law. To read secretly the letter of another is morally as felonious. A woman who would act thus meanly is worse than those who apply their eyes or ears to key-holes, or door-cracks, or who listen under windows, or look down from attics upon their neighbours; or who, in a dusky parlour, before the lamps are lighted, ensconce themselves in a corner, and give no note of their presence while listening to a conversation not intended for them to hear.
We do not conceive that, unless he authorizes her to do so, (which he had best not,) a wife is justifiable in opening her husband's letters, or he in reading hers. Neither wife nor husband has any right to entrust to the other the secrets of their friends; and letters may contain such secrets. Unless under extraordinary circumstances, parents should not consider themselves privileged to inspect the correspondence of grown-up children. Brothers and sisters always take care that their epistles shall not be unceremoniously opened by each other. In short, a letter is the property of the person to whom it is addressed, and nobody has a right to read it without permission.