# When You Write a Letter/Chapter 6

When I was a young fellow, just, starting out into life, I came into daily contact with a man who had had a considerable experience with all sorts of people as a professional man and as a politician. He was shrewd, business-like, and, by those who did not know him very well, was considered cold and calculating—a man who would not be likely to do anything for a purely emotional reason; and yet from him I learned the effectiveness and influence of the letter of courtesy. I mean by this phrase the letter written not in reply to another letter nor yet to elicit a reply of any sort, but simply as an act of politeness and thoughtfulness to acknowledge a kindness or an obligation or to let one's friends or acquaintances know that one was aware of their sorrows and their successes, of their comings and goings, and that one had a real personal interest in these. It is the sort of letter that one is seldom under obligations to write, but if it is written at all it must be done at the opportune moment. Dawson never seemed to let a chance go by to write such a letter. If a ​friend of his was elected to office or received any recognition or promotion for efficient service Dawson was the first to acknowledge the fact with a letter of congratulation. Marriages and births and anniversaries of all sorts never went unnoticed by him. It made little difference who the person concerned was; he might be the leading citizen or the son of a wash woman, but if he were in trouble, or had accomplished something creditable, or was in any way in the public eye, he was sure to get a line from Dawson written with his own hand on the beautiful stationery in the green ink which was with him a fad in correspondence.
When Ralph Roberts lost his life in a railroad accident, though Dawson was a thousand miles away and had really known the boy very slightly, he was the first to write the family and to express his sorrow at the son's unfortunate death; and I recall with what pride the father showed the letter to his friends and what comfort it brought to the broken mother. When George Mills won the two-mile race at the Western Conference Meet, Dawson was the first man to see the notice in a New ​York paper and to write George a letter which gave him the greatest delight, and which he will keep among his treasures as long as he lives. I used to wonder often how he found time to do it, but when I spoke to him about the matter he said, "A man can always find time to do what he really wants to do, and nothing I do gives me more pleasure and satisfaction and influence, I suppose, than to write these letters. They bind me to the friends I have, and I know they make more friends for me."
Few of these letters were ever answered, for the letter of courtesy is the sort that people are glad to receive, that they intend to acknowledge, but seldom do. It took me a long time to reconcile these two facts. When I began to follow Dawson's example and write letters of congratulation and sympathy and encouragement to my friends I was disappointed when they did not reply and was about to conclude that the letters gave little pleasure and the effort of writing them was not worth while. One day a stranger from a little town a hundred miles or so away dropped into my office on a matter of business.
​"I have heard a good deal about you," he said, "from a young fellow in my town by the name of Wrenn."
"What does Jennie have to say about me?" I asked, curious as we all are when our names are mentioned, and trying to recall what I had done to Wrenn.
"Well, you wrote him a letter once when he knocked a home run or won a foot race, or something of that sort, when he was in college, and he never tires of talking about you and of showing the letter to people in the town; and he says he wouldn't take a hundred dollars for it."
The boy had never indicated to me that my letter had brought him any pleasure. I would willingly write another for half of what he says he considers the first one worth, but I determined if such a little thing as writing a letter would bring a boy pleasure through so many years, I should continue the practice.
Another friend of mine, who has learned the importance and the possibilities of this sort of letter-writing, keeps his writing materials at hand in his study and makes it a point almost every morning before he goes to his office to write a ​friendly or a complimentary note or two. If he has talked to a discouraged boy the day previous he tries to brace him up; if he has seen a loafer, he endeavors to stimulate him, and wherever he recognizes an opportunity for giving pleasure or comfort or helpful advice he seizes it and writes the effective word. He realizes, as not all of us have come to do, that the written word is more permanent in its effects than is the spoken word, for what is spoken we may forget when the sound is out of our ears, but whatever is written may be recalled to our memory at will.
I receive every Christmas a great many remembrances from the people I have met in various parts of the world, from the students whom, during the last twenty-five years, I have taught in the University, from young people whom I have encouraged or advised or disciplined or helped in some way, but I receive nothing that gives me so much pleasure as the unsolicited friendly note that stirs recollections and brings good wishes. And it is such an easy thing to write.
Lincoln knew the importance of such a letter, and he knew how to write it when ​occasion demanded. His letter to Mrs. Bixby is one of the most dignified as well as tenderest in the English language.
Dear Madam:
I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
Yours very sincerely and respectfully,
Abraham Lincoln.
Some letters of courtesy we are under obligations to write. A friend whom I ​met yesterday in an unfamiliar city took me out to his house to dinner and spent half the afternoon in contributing to my comfort and pleasure. I should be crude indeed if when I arrived home I did not send him a note of thanks for his unselfish kindness. A group of young fellows sent me a box of flowers when I was ill a short time ago; I should be classed among the heathen and the barbarians if I did not, as soon as I was able, make some written acknowledgment of their thoughtfulness. Any personal attention or courtesy which we are shown, any special obligation which we may incur, we may well recognize and acknowledge in writing. If a friend gets us out of a hole or goes bail for us when we are in jail, the least we can do to show our gratitude is to thank him; and yet, as I now recall it, the last young fellow I saved from jail gave me the impression that he was doing me a personal favor by allowing me to assume the responsibility. I have heard from his parents, but from him I have never had a line. Too often this is the case, but it is really the man who neglects to write who in the end is the sufferer.
​"I wonder if Fred will write us?" I queried one morning after a recent guest had left us. He was no special friend of ours, but we had taken him in and looked after him for a week when he was stopping in our town. He had had a good bed and better meals than I am accustomed to have when we are not entertaining company. He had sat by our cheerful open fire in the evenings and had his breakfast served in the morning when it pleased him to come down.
"Probably not," my wife answered, "they usually don't, and, besides, Fred is young and selfish."
I knew that he meant to write; I knew equally well that he knew he ought to write; but he didn't do it. We never had a word from him. I met him on the street a year later when I was in Kansas City.
"I shall never forget that good time you gave me when I was at your house a year ago," he said, "I meant to write to you, but—" It was the conventional reason, and I said nothing in reply.
Why don't people do it? As I have suggested in another chapter, some are ignorant, they have never been taught at ​home or in the schools just how such things should be handled. Others are lazy and selfish. They have got out of the incident all of the personal pleasure or profit available, and they see no particular reason why they should put themselves to any trouble to acknowledge the courtesy or to give the other fellow pleasure. They are like the young man to whom I lent fifty dollars a few months ago to get him out of a financial embarrassment. He returned it long after the time agreed upon with the statement, "Well, here's your money; and if you knew how nearly I came to not paying it at all you'd think yourself lucky to get it." There was no gratitude on his part; he was rather disgruntled because he was expected to keep his obligation at all. There are those who procrastinate until the time is past when it is opportune to write such a note; and some have no facility in composition; they are so self-conscious and inexperienced as not to know just what to say, so they say nothing.
Such notes should always be informal; they are friendly and personal, and they should take on a friendly personal exte​rior. This means that they should be written in longhand whenever time and circumstances will at all permit. The typewritten note inevitably suggests the turning out of quantities of notes of a similar character. I remember at a time of little leisure a few years ago dictating some personal notes to undergraduates whose excellent scholastic standing had warranted recognition. It was a case of doing it in this way or not doing it at all.
"I want to thank you," one of the men wrote me in acknowledging the note, "for the letter of congratulation which I received. Notwithstanding the fact that the writing of such notes is probably a matter of regular routine taken care of by the clerks in your office, yet I am pleased to be included in one of a small group which is worthy of special recognition."
He saw nothing personal or individual in my typewritten letter, though it was different from those sent to the other men, and I was not sure that I could blame him for so thinking. He saw it only as a form letter sent out whenever occasion warranted. I should have found time to write it by hand as I have since tried to do.
​In other respects also the earmarks of a business letter should be eliminated in the note of courtesy. One of two forms may be used—a form used commonly in informal military correspondence or a still more informal form. The two illustrations below will make clear what I mean.
5449 Greenwood Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, March 17, 1921.
Dear Frank:
This morning's Tribune contained the announcement that you have just been made a member of the firm for which you have been working since you left college. This is a quick recognition of your worth, and I am sure shows that you have been as attentive to duty since you got out of college as you were while an undergraduate. I congratulate you and the firm that has been lucky enough to get you. I am sure that what you have done in the past is a true indication of what you will accomplish in the future.
Sincerely yours,
John Watson
To
Mr. Frank Turner,
Ancona, Illinois.
Dear Mrs. Bryan:
The announcement of Robert's death was a great shock to all of us and filled us with sorrow and regret. Mr. Stewart and I recall with pleasure our intimate relations with him last summer at Estes Park. There never was a more unselfish boy nor one who made friends more quickly. No one who knew him will ever forget him. There is little I can say to comfort you in his loss. You have, however, the sweet memory of a thoughtful, loving son, and the assurance of the deepest sympathy of his friends and yours.
Sincerely yours,
Silvia Black Stewart
Elgin, Illinois,
April 2, 1920.
"I worked for a man fifteen years," a friend of mine said to me not long ago, "and I am sure I did good work. My employer would have admitted it had he been asked. Every few days during the time of my connection with him he pointed out to me my shortcomings and my mistakes, but only once during the entire time did he give me a word of praise or commendation. I came to know that if he said nothing he approved; if he could not approve I heard from him in no uncertain terms." It is a habit we have, even in our correspondence, of sending our flowers after our friends are dead. If we would only look around, if we were willing unselfishly to take the trouble, there are almost daily opportunities where these epistolary flowers might give encouragement and comfort and happiness to those who are still alive.
The effect of such letters upon those who receive them is not their only effect. Indirectly they influence the happiness and the success of the writer. First of all they bring him more friends, and help him ​to hold those he already has. "If one would have friends, he must show himself friendly," is the substance of Bacon's statement, and its truth can be proved in the experience of all of us. Few of us have more friends than we need, and we can well afford to hold on to our present list and to develop as many new ones as possible. It takes a very little thing sometimes either to cement or to break a friendship that has no very strong bonds.
It is a good business proposition even if one is doing the thing from a purely selfish motive to write these letters of courtesy, for there is in it a personal touch that cannot help but make its appeal. Many of our everyday business deals are finally settled upon purely personal grounds. There are a half dozen stores in town which sell men's clothing, and there is little if any difference in the character of the goods they display. I do business with the one with whose proprietor I have the most intimate personal relations, the one who has shown me the most personal kindness, and who gives me the most careful personal attention. I am appealed to quite as much by the relationships which ​have developed between us outside of his store as by those which are shown at the particular moment of doing business. The fact that he sends me a lithographed postal card when he is at Palm Beach or writes me a letter of congratulations on my birthday induces me indirectly to get a new spring suit at his establishment, and I do not believe that he intends this result at all when he takes the time to write me. But it is an evidence of good salesmanship whether it is practiced by the minister or the milkman. It develops one's sympathies, it widens one's interests, it robs one of selfishness and cultivates in one some of the social graces which might otherwise be lacking. It is a sort of humanizer, a broadening, refining influence which is good for every man.
These letters should not be long; they require no literary skill to make them effective. They should be direct, sincere, genuine; they should come from the heart; nothing would show so quickly as hypocrisy; nothing would be so ineffective as to overdo or exaggerate the feeling or the sentiments or the emotions expressed. The writer should say what he feels and feel ​what he says. Unless he is genuinely himself, he will have failed.
A wealthy friend of mine was written a few years ago by a minister who wished to induce the zapitalist to give a certain sum of money toward the building of a church. My friend refused at first, but afterward made the gift through another channel. "Why did you refuse to give the money to Mr. Andrews?" I asked him one day, with some curiosity to understand his viewpoint. "The man tried to flatter me," was his reply. "He was not sincere; in order to influence me, he said things that were not true. I enjoy flattery, as every man does; but to be effective it must be skilfully done, and his work was crude."
I have lately been sending to a little girl of my acquaintance—she is nine years old, I think—the foreign stamps which correspondence brings to me. She is making a collection, and not infrequently I find one that she does not possess. It is very little trouble to me to slip the stamps into an envelope and address it to her. She wrote me a short time ago a very correct and a very proper letter for a young woman of ​her age, or of any age for that matter, to write to a married man. It paid me a thousand times over for the effort it caused her to write the note, and besides, it gave her training in thoughtfulness and courtesy. I reproduce the letter here for the benefit of those who have had no experience and no training in this sort of correspondence and who may be induced themselves to try it some time in the future:
Urbana, Illinois, March 9, 1921.
My dear Mr. Clark:
I want to thank you for the foreign stamps which you sent me. There were a number of them that we did not have in our collection. It was very good of you to take the trouble to send them.
Yours sincerely,
Margaret Carnahan.
There is no other form of letter-writing that seems to me to hold so many possibilities, and there is no other form so little used. I commend it to you.