In answering an invitation never say "will accept." The act of writing the answer involves either the acceptance or the regret, as the case may be, and the present tense should be used.
CHAPTER VI
CORRESPONDENCE
TO-DAY AND YESTERDAY
It is customary nowadays to deplore the fact that the art of letter-writing has fallen into decay, and when we read that the entire correspondence of an engaged couple recently was carried on for two years by telephone and telegraph we are inclined to believe it. Yet such is not the case. It is true that we no longer have—and for this we should be truly grateful—flowery expressions of rhetorical feeling interlarded with poetic sentiments selected from a "Home Book of Verse," or some similar compilation, but we do have letters which are genuine and wholesome expressions of friendship.
It is a gift to be able to write lovely notes of congratulation, sympathy and appreciation, and one that has to be cultivated. Writing of all kinds grows perfect with practice and the large majority of people have to serve a long apprenticeship before they have mastered the gentle art of expressing themselves on paper. It is an art worth mastering even if one never has to write anything but polite social notes and letters.
THE LETTER YOU WRITE
From Buckingham we have the following little rhyme that does full justice to the important art of letter-writing:
Of all those arts in which the wise excel,
Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.