Letters intended to go by mail on the continent of Europe, should be written on a single, large sheet of thin paper, and not enveloped.
It is as ill-bred not to reply to a communication requiring an acknowledgment, or to neglect proper attention to all the several matters of importance to which it relates, as it is not to answer a question directly and personally addressed to you.
Promptitude is also demanded by good-breeding, in this regard. Necessity only can excuse the impoliteness of subjecting a friend, or business-correspondent, to inconvenience or anxiety, occasioned by delay in replying to important letters.
Tyros in epistolary composition may derive advantage from noting the peculiar excellences of the published letters of celebrated authors and others; not for the purpose of servile imitation, but as affording useful general models, or guides. Miscellaneous readers may note the genial humor and patient elaborateness characterizing the letters of the "Great Unknown," the felicities of expression sometimes observable in the familiar missives of Byron, and of his friend Tom Moore (when the latter is not writing to his much-put-upon London publisher for table-supplies, etc.!) amuse himself with the gossiping capacity for details exhibited by those of Horace Walpole, and con, with wondering admiration, the epistolary illustrations of the well-disciplined, thoroughly-balanced character of the great American model, of whose writings it may always be said—whether an "order," written on a drum-head, or the draught of a document involving the interests of all humanity is the subject—that they are "well done."
Among the collections of letters I remember to have read, none now occur to me as offering more variety of style than those included in the "Memoirs of H. More." They are a little old-fashioned now, perhaps; but some of them, both for matter and manner, are, in their way, unsurpassed in English literature. Some of those of Sir W. W. Pepys, I recollect as peculiarly pleasing.
Several of the published letters of Dr. Johnson, and one or two of those of our own Franklin, are to be regarded as among the curiosities of literature, rather than as precedents which circumstances will ever render available, or desirable. Johnson's celebrated letter to Lord Chesterfield, declining his proffered patronage, for instance—and Franklin's, concluding with the witty sarcasm—
"You are now my enemy, and I am
"Yours, B. Franklin.
At some future time, perhaps, the literary treasures of our country will be enriched by specimens of the correspondence of such of our contemporaries as inspire the highest admiration for their general style of composition. Who could fail to peruse with interest, letters from the pen of Prescott, who never makes even such a physical infirmity as his, a plea for inaccuracy, or carelessness of expression? And who would not hail with delight any draught presented by the bounteous hand of Irving, from,
"The well of English undefiled,"