Grammatical inaccuracies and vulgarisms are never allowable among educated people, whether in speaking or writing; nor is defective spelling excusable.
Punctuation and attention to the general rules of composition should not be overlooked, as thus only can unmistakable intelligibleness be secured.
Avoid all ambitious pen-flourishes, and attempts at ornamental caligraphy, and aim at the acquisition of a legible, neat, gentleman-like hand, and a pure, manly, expressive style, in this most essential of all forms of composition.
The possession of excellence in this accomplishment will enable you to disseminate high social and domestic pleasure. Nothing affords so gratifying a solace to friends, when separated, as the reception of those tokens of remembrance and regard. They only who have wandered far, far away from the ties of country, friends, and home, can fully appreciate the delight afforded by the reception of letters of a satisfactory character. And the welcome assurances of the safety, health, and happiness of the absent and loved, is the best consolation of home-friends.
Practice, patience, and tact, are equally essential to the acquisition of ease and grace in this desirable art. Wit, humor, and playfulness are its proper embellishments, and variety should characterize its themes. A certain egotism, too, is not only pardonable, but absolutely requisite, and may even become delicately complimentary to the recipient of one's confidence.
Let me remind you, too, that—though "offence of spoken words" may be excused by the excitement of passing feeling—the deliberate commission of unkind, or, worse still, of unjust, untruthful, injurious language, to paper, argues an obliquity of moral vision little likely to secure the writer either
"What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy,
The soul's calm sunshine,"
or the respect and regard of others.
Facility in writing familiar letters may be increased by the habit of mentally recording, before inditing them, as opportunity affords material, such incidents of travel, items of personal interest, or gossiping intelligence, etc., as may be thought best suited to the tastes of your correspondents. And it is well, before closing such communications, not only to glance over them to satisfy yourself of their freedom from mistakes, but by that means to recall any omission occasioned by forgetfulness.
Notes of Invitation, of Acceptance, and Regret, require, of course, brevity and simplicity of expression. The prevailing mode of the society you are connected with, is usually the proper guide in relation to these matters of form, for the time being. Thus the mere formula of social life at Washington, Boston, Charleston, Paris, or St. Petersburg, may be somewhat varied, as usage alone frequently determines these niceties, and all eccentricities and peculiarities in this respect, as in most others, are in bad taste. Cards, or Notes, of Invitation to Dinners and Soirées, are frequently printed, and merely names and dates supplied in writing. The example of the best society (in the most elevated sense of that much-abused phrase) everywhere, sanctions only the most unpretending mode of expression and general style, for such occasions. The utmost beauty and exquisiteness of finish in the mere material, but the absence of all pretentious ornament, is thought most unexceptionable.