Perfect Behavior Part 11

MY DEAR MR. ROBERTS: 10-6-22

I am writing you in regard to a little matter of matrimony which no doubt you have overlooked in the press of business elsewhere.

This is not to be considered as a "dun" but merely as a gentle reminder of the fact that it would be extremely agreeable if you could see fit to let me marry your daughter before the first of next month. I feel sure that you will give this matter your immediate attention.

Yours truly, ED. FISH.

11-2-22 DEAR MR. ROBERTS:

As you have not as yet replied to my communication of 10-6-22 regarding marriage to your daughter, I presume that you were not at the time disposed to take care of the matter to which I referred. I feel sure that upon consideration you will agree that my terms are exceedingly liberal and I must therefore request that you let me have some word from you before the first of next month.

Yours truly, EDWARD FISH.

(Registered Mail) 12-2-22 DEAR SIR:

You have not as yet replied to my communication of 10-6-22 and 11-2-22. I should regret exceedingly being forced to place this matter in the hands of my attorneys, Messrs. Goldstein and Nusselmann, 41 City Nat'l Bank Bldg.

E. FISH.

Of course, it would never do to carry this series to its conclusion and if no reply is received to this last letter it might be well to call on the gentleman in his place of business--or, possibly, it might even be better to call off the engagement. "None but the brave deserve the fair"--but there is also a line in one of Byron's poems which goes, I believe, "Here sleep the brave."

LOVE LETTERS

A young man corresponding with his fiancee is never, of course, as formal as in his letters to other people. This does not mean, however, that his correspondence should be full of silly meaningless "nothings."

On the contrary, he should aim to instruct and benefit his future spouse as well as convey to her his tokens of affection. The following letter well ill.u.s.trates the manner in which a young man may write his fiancee a letter which, while it is replete with proper expressions of amatory good will, yet manages to embody a fund of sensible and useful information:

A Correct Letter from a Young Man Traveling in Europe to His Fiancee

MY DEAREST EDITH:

How I long to see you--to hold tight your hand--to look into your eyes. But alas! you are in Toledo and I am in Paris, which, as you know, is situated on the Seine River near the middle of the so-called Paris basin at a height above sea-level varying from 85 feet to 419 feet and extending 7 1/2 miles from W. to E. and 5 1/2 miles from N. to S. But, dearest, I carry your image with me in my heart wherever I go in this vast city with its population (1921) of 2,856,986 and its average mean rainfall Of 2.6 inches, and I wish--oh, how I wish--that you might be here with me.

Yesterday, for example, I went to the Pere Lachaise cemetery which is the largest (106 acres) and most fashionable cemetery in Paris, its 90,148 (est.) tombs forming a veritable open-air sculpture gallery. And what do you think I found there which made me think of you more than ever? Not the tombs of La Fontaine (d.

1695) and Moliere (d. 1673) whose remains, transferred to this cemetery in 1804, const.i.tuted the first interments--not the last resting place of Rosa Bonheur (d. 1899) or the victims of the Op< p="">

Edith dearest, I am sitting in my room gazing first at your dear picture and then out of my window at the Eiffel Tower which is the tallest structure in the world, being 984 feet high (Woolworth Building 750 feet, Washington Obelisk 555 feet, Great Pyramid 450 feet). And although it may sound too romantic, yet it seems to me, dearest, that our love is as strong and as st.u.r.dy as this masterpiece of engineering construction which weighs 7,000 tons, being composed of 12,000 pieces of metal fastened by 2,500,000 iron rivets.

Farewell, my dearest one--I must go now to visit the Catacombs, a huge charnelhouse which is said to contain the remains of nearly three million persons, consisting of a labyrinth of galleries lined with bones and rows of skulls through which visitors are escorted on the first and third Sat.u.r.day of each month at 2 P. M.

I long to hold you in my arms.

Devotedly, PAUL.

CORRESPONDENCE OF PUBLIC OFFICIALS

Congressmen and other public officials are as a rule more careful correspondents than are men whose letters are never to be seen by the public at large. There is a certain well-defined form for a letter meant for public consumption which distinguishes it from correspondence of a more private nature. Thus a Congressman, writing a "public letter,"

would cast it in the following form:

A Correct "Public Letter" from a Congressman

Mr. Ellison Lothrop, Vice-Pres. Washington Co.. "Better Citizenship" League,

MY DEAR MR. LOTHROP:

You have requested that I give to the Washington County Better Citizenship League, of which you are an active vice-president, some expression of my views upon the question of Prohibition.

Sir, can there be any doubt as to the belief of every right thinking American citizen in this matter? The Eighteenth Amendment is here and here, thank G.o.d, to stay! The great benefit which Prohibition has done to the poor and the working cla.s.ses is reason enough for its continued existence. It is for the manufacturers, the professional cla.s.s, the capitalists to give up gladly whatever small pleasure they may have derived from the use of alcohol, in order that John Jones, workingman, may have money in the bank and a happy home, instead of his Sat.u.r.day night debauch. In every democracy the few sacrifice for the many--"the greatest good of the greatest number" is the slogan. And I, for one, am proud to have been a member of that legislative body which pa.s.sed so truly G.o.d-bidden and democratic an act as the Eighteenth Amendment.

I beg to remain, with best wishes to your great organization, Sincerely yours, WALTER G. TOWNSLEY.

A Correct Private Letter of a Congressman

DEAR BOB:

Tell that fellow on Mulberry Street that I will pay $135 a case for Scotch and $90 for gin DELIVERED and not a cent more.

W. G. T.

{ill.u.s.tration caption = The problem of an introduction when there is no mutual acquaintance is sometimes perplexing. But the young man, having had the good taste to purchase a copy of PERFECT BEHAVIOR, is having no difficulty. He has fastened a rope across the sidewalk in front of the lady's house and, with the aid of a match and some kerosene, has set fire to the house. Driven by the heat, the young lady will eventually emerge and in her haste will fall over the rope. To a gentleman of gallantry and ingenuity the rest should be comparatively simple.}

{ill.u.s.tration caption = A knowledge of the language of flowers is essential to a successful courtship and may avoid much unnecessary pain.

With the best intentions in the world the young man is about to present the young lady with a flower of whose meaning he is in total ignorance.

The young lady, being a faithful student of PERFECT BEHAVIOR, knows its exact meaning and it will be perfectly correct for her to turn and, with a frigid bow, break the pot over the young man's head. Alas, how differently this romance might have ended if the so-called "friends" of the young man had tactfully but firmly pointed out to him the value of a book on etiquette such as PERFECT BEHAVIOR.}

LETTERS TO NEWSPAPERS, MAGAZINES, ETC.

Another type of public correspondence is the letter which is intended for publication in some periodical. This is usually written by elderly gentlemen with whiskers and should be cast in the following form:

A Correct Letter from an Elderly Gentleman to the Editor of a Newspaper or Magazine

To the Editor: SIR:

On February next, Deo volente, I shall have been a constant reader of your worthy publication for forty-one years. I feel, sir, that that record gives me the right ipso facto to offer my humble criticism of a statement made in your November number by that worthy critic of the drama, Mr. Heywood Broun. Humanum est errare, and I am sure that Mr. Broun (with whom I have unfortunately not the honour of an acquaintance) will forgive me for calling his attention to what is indeed a serious, and I might say, unbelievable, misstatement. In my younger days, now long past, it was not considered infra dig for a critic to reply to such letters as this, and I hope that Mr. Broun will deem this epistle worthy of consideration, and recognize the justice of my complaint.

I remember well a controversy that raged between critic and public for many weeks in the days when Joe Jefferson was playing Rip Van Winkle. Ah, sir, do you remember (but, of course, you don't) that entrance of Joe in the first act with his dog Schneider? That was not my first play by many years, but I believe that it is still my favorite. I think the first time I ever attended a dramatic performance was in the winter of '68 when I was a student at Harvard College. Five of us freshmen went into the old Boston Museum to see Our American Cousin. Joe Chappell was with us that night and the two Dawes boys and, I think, Elmer Mitch.e.l.l. One of the Dawes twins was, I believe, afterwards prominent in the Hayes administration. There were many men besides Will Dawes in that Harvard cla.s.s who were heard from in later years. Ed Twitch.e.l.l for one, and "Sam" Caldwell, who was one of the nominees for vice president in '92. I sat next to Sam in "Bull" Warren's Greek cla.s.s. THERE was one of the finest scholars this country has ever produced--a stern taskmaster, and a thorough gentleman. It would be well for this younger generation if they could spend a few hours in that old cla.s.sroom, with "Bull" pacing up and down the aisle and all of us trembling in our shoes. But Delenda est Carthago--fuit Ilium--Requiescat in pace. I last saw "Bull" at our fifteenth reunion and we were all just as afraid of him as in the old days at Hollis.

But I digress. Tempus fugit,--which reminds me of a story "Billy"

Hallowell once told at a meeting of the American Bar a.s.sociation in Minneapolis, in 1906. Hallowell was perhaps the most brilliant after-dinner speaker I have ever heard--with the possible exception of W. D. Evarts. I shall never forget the speech that Evarts made during the second Blaine campaign.

But I digress. Your critic, Mr. Heywood Broun, says on page 33 of the November issue of your worthy magazine that The Easiest Way is the father of all modern American tragedy. Sir, does Mr. Broun forget that there once lived a man named William Shakespeare? Is it possible to overlook such immortal tragedies as Hamlet and Oth.e.l.lo? I think not. Fiat just.i.tia, ruat colum.

Sincerely, SHERWIN G. COLLINS.

A Correct Letter from an Indignant Father to an Editor of Low Ideals

To the Editor: Sir: