Elementary Composition · Part 10

It is absolutely essential that the entry for each day should be made while it is fresh in your mind; do not wait for several days, and then "write up" your diary. A short entry on the day of the occurrence is worth more than a page written a week later.

After the school news, and what you yourself have done, enter anything unusual which any one you know has done, or any change of conditions at home; i.e. that it is preserving time and the house is full of odor of cooking fruit; that it is near Christmas, and you worked with the others on making wreaths for the decorations of the church. You will find that a brief record of your work at school, how you succeeded and how you failed, what you found hard and why, is of real use to you.

43. Imaginary Diaries.--After you have formed the habit of making every day a picture of your own actual life, try making a similar picture of the life of an imaginary person. Take any period you have studied in your history and try to make a diary of a boy or girl who lived in that time.

Exercise 77.--1. A Puritan boy in the first winter of the stay of the Puritan fathers in New England; choose a week when they first land, and a week when spring begins to come. Bring out the difference in his feelings.

2. A girl in Dutch Manhattan. Tell the story of the taking of Manhattan by the English as it would have appeared to her. From your study of the customs and habits of the time, write a week's entries of her holiday week, Christmas customs, etc.

3. An Indian boy: a week's diary in the West, on the plains, etc., and then later, a week's entries after he arrives at the Indian school and is being taught the customs of the white men.

4. Diary of a week spent as you would like best to spend it. Diary of an imaginary week in the country; in the city; in South America; on an ocean voyage; during a week's illness.

5. Diary of the inhabitant of any country you are studying in your geography lessons.

44. The Class Diary.--If there is not already such a custom in your class room, it is a good thing for you to start a class diary, or record of the year's school work and activities. This aims to do the same thing for the class that your personal diary does for your own life, and in it should be written all that makes the life of each school day or week distinctive. This book is left in your class room, to form one of a series of such records, which will be of increasing interest as the years go on. Any large blank book may be used for this purpose, and great care should be taken to keep the record very neatly written. Nothing should be entered until all corrections have been made, so that a fair copy may be written.

Sometimes, when only the larger events are to be chronicled, it is better that this record be set down by weeks, rather than by days. A good plan is to divide the class into committees of four or five each, who take charge of noting down the happenings of the week. They write the entry, read it to the class for suggestions and criticisms, and set it down in the class diary.

It is well to have fixed a certain number of items which are to be noted regularly, and these may be divided among the members of the committee for the week. For instance, one may make it his business to note the weather, the temperature, the wind, or any unusual conditions out of doors; another, the advance of the seasons, the day when the first robin arrives, or when the first definite signs of winter were seen, whether this be the falling of the last leaves, the first snowstorm, or the fact that the street cars are heated; another may take as his share the state of the studies of the class, unusual lessons, if any, and the progress made in the regular ones; another, any items of general interest in other classes in the school. A record of all manner of items may be kept here,--facts which the class is interested in keeping, such as the attendance for each day, or the average attendance for the week, the average percentage of the class in any study, etc.

For special events,--entertainments, debates, excursions, etc.,--there may be a member of the committee delegated to report, or the accounts may be written as an exercise, and the best one selected by the committee or teacher.

The entry for the week should be made up of these various reports, entered neatly in the class diary, and signed by the pupils composing the committee.

CHAPTER IX

THE LETTER

45. Various Kinds of Letters.--You have seen that the diary or journal is the most informal and simple form of written expression, since it is intended, as a rule, for the writer only. The letter is less personal than the diary, because it is addressed to one other person; but it is more personal than general writing (description, stories, etc.), which is addressed to a number of persons, most of whom the writer does not know. Letters differ widely according to their purposes, but the merit of any sort of a letter may be judged by putting yourself in the place of the person receiving it, and trying to feel whether you would be satisfied by it.

Letters may be classified as follows according to their purposes:--

1. To bridge over, as far as possible, a separation between people who know each other well, and to take the place of a conversation between them. Friendly letters.

2. To arrange matters of social intercourse in the most correct and pleasing manner, to extend and accept or refuse invitations, etc. Social letters.

3. To give information or ask questions as clearly as possible. Business letters.

4. To give information or ask questions as briefly as is consistent with perfect clearness. Telegrams.

5. To take the place of going about and telling many people the same thing. Notices.

6. To present a request for a favor in the most persuasive manner. Petitions.

46. Friendly Letters.--There are five main parts to every letter: (1) the heading; (2) the salutation; (3) the body, or what is written; (4) the complimentary ending; (5) the conclusion. In a friendly letter the heading, which consists of the post-office address of the writer and the date of writing, is sometimes omitted, although it is always best to write the date, even in letters of the greatest intimacy. Some of the usual salutations in letters to near friends or relatives are: My dear Mother, Dear Father, Dear Mary, My dear Mrs. Smith, My dear Aunt Martha. According to the degree of intimacy the usual complimentary endings are: Sincerely yours, Very sincerely yours, Cordially yours, Heartily yours, Yours ever, Affectionately yours, Yours lovingly, Your loving daughter, Your affectionate son, etc. In letters to members of the family or close friends the first name only is sometimes signed.

The following are good typical forms for friendly letters:--

(1)

DORSET, N. H., May 10, 1906.

MY DEAR GILBERT,--

----------------------------- ------------------------------------------ ------------------

Faithfully yours, JAMES MEYER.

(2) BUTTE, April 16, Thursday.

DEAR MOTHER,--

-------------------------- ------------------------------------------ ---------------------------

Your affectionate son,

HENRY.

The ideal in friendly letters is to write to your correspondent what you would say to him if you could see him, and to answer the questions he would put to you. If you are away on a visit, for instance, the questions he would probably ask are, "What sort of a place is it where you are? Are you having a good time? What are you doing to amuse yourself?" Try to think what sort of a letter you would like to have him write if he were away, and write accordingly.

Although you wish to write naturally and almost as though you were talking, it is best to make out a list of the really important things you wish to say, or you will find that you have come to the end of your letter without stating some vital facts you wished your friend to know. It has been said that a friendly letter should be like a conversation, but you must remember that it is a conversation limited in time. If you were about to see your friend for only a half hour, it would be well to think of a few main facts you wished to tell him, or questions you wish him to answer, and bear them in mind; otherwise your time might come to an end before you had said the important things. Even for the most informal letter it is always best to make an outline, although it may be a very brief one.

Suppose you wish to describe the way in which you spent Christmas away from home. Probably nothing very unusual happened, and you may think an outline unnecessary; but you will find, even in relating the facts of one day, that if you do not have some plan and keep in your mind the main events in their proper order, you will be likely to write a confused and incomplete account of what you did. Some such outline as the following is needed:--

INTRODUCTION. The place where I was,--city, country, or village; the weather; general conditions. (This information can be given as briefly as you please, in a paragraph, but it is essential to understanding what you say about Christmas Day itself.)

MAIN BODY OF THE LETTER. Morning. Why we hung up our stockings, and how we received our presents. Dinner. How we helped prepare it, and any special features of it. Afternoon. Coasting. Evening. Charades, and the one we thought particularly good.

ENDING. Inquiries about your friend's Christmas, friendly greetings, and the close.

A letter written on the above outline follows:--

NEWTONVILLE, WIS. January 2, 1906.

MY DEAR HARRY,--

I promised you before the holidays began that I would let you know how I had spent my Christmas, but the last day of the vacation has come and I have not written you a line. The truth is that I have been having such a good time every minute that I have not realized how fast the week has been going. You remember my big cousin who goes to the State University, don't you? He came to visit our school once, last winter. His father, my uncle, invited our family to come out here and have a real "country Christmas" on his farm, and here we have been since the day after school closed. He lives in a fine, large farmhouse, with room enough in it for his big family and ours, too. We are three miles from town, but there are plenty of horses to drive, and the air is so bracing and the weather so clear and cold that we don't mind the walk. Besides that, there are such a lot of us that nobody ever has to go alone. I never knew what fun it is to be in a big family. There is always somebody ready for a tramp whenever you want to go out, and in the evenings it is like being at a party all the time.

On Christmas eve we hung up our stockings, even the grown-ups. That was for the little children, who still think there is a Santa Claus. There was hardly room enough along the mantelpiece for them all, and the next morning, when they were all full and knobby, they actually overlapped. Christmas morning we were all up ever so early. Before it was really light, my big cousin was around knocking at the doors, calling us to breakfast and shouting, "Merry Christmas!" We scrambled into our clothes and raced downstairs to breakfast, and then to the stockings. We pretended we thought Santa Claus had just that minute gone, and you ought to have seen the little girls look up the chimney after him.

By the time everybody had looked at all his own presents and the things other people had, it was time to begin thinking about dinner. We helped get it. I shouldn't be surprised if we were more in the way than a help, but it was lots of fun. The girls worked around in the kitchen and helped set the table, and we boys decorated the rooms with greens and turned the ice-cream crank. There were eighteen of us at table, and you couldn't hear yourself think for the talking and laughing. The last thing we did was to pass around a big sheet of paper, and everybody wrote his name on it and anything else he wanted to say. We are going to try, all of us, to get together that way every Christmas, and make such a list each time for a remembrance. My big cousin wrote, "United we cook, united we eat, united we die!" I said it was the best Christmas I had ever had.

We had eaten so much that after dinner we just sat around and talked for a while, and then a crowd of boys went out to coast and try our new sleds. There is a fine hill right near the house, and the snow was exactly right. You can coast as much as ten city blocks without slowing up at all, and then you run along on a level for four or five more.

In the evening some of the neighbors came in and we played charades. I never knew you could have so much fun at that. We thought of a number of good words, but our side had the best, "Russian." We played the first syllable like a football "rush," and that was exciting. My cousin is on the university team, and he told us just what to do to have it like real football. We acted the last syllable as "shun," and none of us would look at one of the girls,--"shunned" her, you know. For the whole word we put on all the furs we could find, and paraded around with banners, and pretended to throw bombs. The other side couldn't guess for a long time what we were acting.

We were pretty tired when we went to bed, but I thought again it was about the nicest Christmas I had ever known.

I hope you had a good time, too, and I wish you would write me about it. It must have been very different from mine, since you were in the city. Did you get the new skates you wanted? My father gave me a pair. I hope I shall hear soon from you that your Christmas was as great a success as mine.

Sincerely yours,

GEORGE ALLEN.

Exercise 78.--Make a similar outline and write a letter on any one of the following topics:--

(1) Your Christmas holidays in the city. (2) A trip in a boat. (3) The use of a new camera. (4) The beginning of a new study in school. (5) The beginning of new lessons out of school. (6) The last game of baseball, basket-ball, etc., you have seen. (7) A railway journey. (8) Your friend is away on a visit. Write him all that has gone on in the neighborhood and school since he left. (9) Your parents are away. Write them the news of your home. (10) You have found a certain book interesting. Write your friend about it and recommend it to him. (11) Describe an interesting address or play you have heard. (12) An accident which you saw or one in which you were. (13) An expedition in the woods. (14) An entertainment you have recently seen or one which you helped to give. (15) A new pet. (16) A carpenter shop you have arranged for yourself in an unused room. (17) A picnic. (18) A new society which has been started in your school. (19) You have your parents' permission to undertake a walking trip or bicycling tour of several days through the country. Write to a friend, stating your plans and asking him to join you. (20) A similar letter proposing a week's camping-out in the woods.

Note.--A longer list of subjects for friendly letters is not given because almost any of the subjects for other forms of composition can be treated in a letter. Moreover, it is highly desirable that pupils should write letters to real people,--relatives, friends, or pupils in other schools with whom an exchange has been arranged. A real correspondence, where the pupil feels he is attempting to interest and please an actual person, arouses much more spirit than purely imaginary letters.

47. Letters of Social Intercourse.--In form, letters of social intercourse stand between the purely friendly letter and the business letter. The address of the writer and the date of the letter often stand at the foot of the letter, beginning opposite the signature in the more informal notes, as in the following form:--

MY DEAR MRS. BLACKMAR,--

----------------------------- ----------------------------------------- -----------------------------

Very sincerely yours,

MARY HOLDEN.

22 HIGH STREET, COLUMBUS, O. April 12, 1906.

In the most formal letter of social intercourse, the address of the writer and the date stand at the beginning, and the complete name and address of the person addressed stand at the foot, thus:--

428 BOLTON PLACE, PITTSBURGH, PA., September 26, 1906.

MY DEAR SIR,--

----------------------------------- ------------------------------------------ -----------------------------------

Very sincerely yours,

RICHARD WHITE.

MR. ELBERT PETERS, ROSS CENTER, N. Y.

Sometimes, instead of writing Mr. before a name, Esq. is written after it, but the two are never used at the same time.

In style, the letter of social intercourse should be as graceful as it is possible to make it, although it should always be simple and not too long. Many invitations and answers to them have a form fixed by tradition (see Formal Invitations, § 48), but the informal social letter is almost entirely a matter of taste. There are, however, a few courteous phrases which are so much used as to be almost fixed forms. Such are: "I hope that we may have the pleasure of your company," "I hope that you can be with us," "I regret most sincerely that it is impossible for me to accept your kind invitation," "I shall be very happy to be with you," "It is with great pleasure that I accept your kind invitation," "I regret that a previous engagement prevents me from accepting your invitation," etc.

The following is a typical informal invitation:--

MY DEAR MRS. WILSON,--

My mother wishes me to write you that we are planning to take a drive to Chester on next Tuesday, and should be very glad to have you with us. We are to leave at nine o'clock, so that we may be at the Chester Hotel in time for dinner.

I hope that is not too early an hour for you, and that we may have the pleasure of your company on that day.

Very sincerely yours,

MARGARET HUNT.

HILLTOP LODGE, WIS., January 14, 1906.

Exercise 79.--The following letters should be written on note paper or on paper ruled to that size:--

1. Write an acceptance to the above invitation.

2. Write a note to a friend of your mother's, saying that your mother is slightly indisposed and cannot keep an engagement. Write a suitable answer.