So much for people who are badly named. Now for people who are too well named, who go topheavy from the font, who are baptized into a false position, and who find themselves beginning life eclipsed under the fame of some of the great ones of the past. A man, for instance, called William Shakespeare could never dare to write plays. He is thrown into too humbling an apposition with the author of Hamlet. His own name coming after is such an anti-climax. "The plays of William Shakespeare?" says the reader—"O no! The plays of William Shakespeare Cockerill," and he throws the book aside. In wise pursuance of such views, Mr. John Milton Hengler, who not long since delighted us in this favored town, has never attempted to write an epic, but has chosen a new path and has excelled upon the tight-rope. A marked example of triumph over this is the case of Mr. Dante Gabriel Rosetti. On the face of the matter, I should have advised him to imitate the pleasing modesty of the last-named gentleman, and confine his ambition to the sawdust. But Mr. Rosetti has triumphed. He has even dared to translate from his mighty name-father; and the voice of fame supports him in his boldness.
Exercise 215
Turn back to [Exercise 210], 1. How are the different paragraphs that you have made connected?
CHAPTER XV
BUSINESS LETTERS
Not long ago the head of one of the biggest mail order firms in this country said: "Business needs the boys and the girls. Do not let them think they can be but cogs in the great system of wheels. More to-day than at any previous time the world needs men and women who can speak and write themselves into English. Four hundred million dollars is wasted every year in unprofitable advertising alone, and as much more in bad handling of good prospects and loss of customers through inefficient letters. We look to the future generation to conserve a part of this enormous loss. If a single page advertisement in a single issue costs $7500, what you say on that page is important. Look into any current magazine, and you will be tremendously impressed with the importance of English in this branch alone, not to mention its importance in letter writing."
There is no greater power in business to-day than the ability to use convincing English in correspondence and in advertising. Any one who can write good letters, letters that the reader feels he must answer, has success ahead of him, because the market of a good letter is practically unrestricted. Wherever a letter can penetrate, it may create desire for an article and make sales.
But what is a good letter? Nothing more than a bit of good English. Can you write clear, direct, crisp, yet fluent English? Then you can write good letters—but not till then.