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Show . EXCURSIONS IN CORRESPONDENCE By THOMAS ARKLE CLARK Dean of Men, University of Illinois. The Conclusion of the Matter T COULD not intelligently bring this series of papers to a close without forming a few generalizations for the purpose of helping those whose excursions excur-sions in correspondence have been less extensive than my own. I have come to see that letters may have as distinct a personality as human hu-man beings, or perhaps it would be better to say that they are capable of revealing a personality. When you take the envelope into your hand, even before you open the letter, if you are a keen observer, you can gain some idea of the character of the man who has written the letter, especially if the letter is written In long hand. The form and dress of a letter may tell as much about the writer as do the dress and the manners of an individual. indi-vidual. A letter, by its form, may show orderliness, judgment, regard for detail, business efficiency, or it may show the opposite. A friend of mine is being considered consid-ered for a prominent executive position, posi-tion, for the filling of which, he is In many ways qualified. The character of his mind Is shown to no small degree de-gree by his exterior, and by the character char-acter of his dress the envelope, as it were. His hands are not always neatly neat-ly kept, his hair is a mop of tangled grass, his clothes are soiled, and look as if lie went to bed with his boots on. He is a little careless in speech and thought, a little lacking in the delicate refinements of social intercourse. His exterior reveals that at once, and so a letter may reveal its writer. I had a letter this morning from a man who wishes to become the pastor of the church of which I am a member. mem-ber. It was badly arranged, without order or form. It looked like a young school boy's composition. I wondered if it did not show to a great extent the character of the man's mind, and suggest sug-gest the way in which his sermons would be ordered. Form counts in letter writing, as in human relationships ; materials reveal the man, just as clothing does. Letter writing is something more than the mere communication of facts and mechanical details by written characters from one individual to another. an-other. It Is even in the most trivial business letter, or it may be, the revealing re-vealing of one personality to another. We should write letters with the purpose pur-pose of selling one's products to the other man. These may be varied in character automobiles, love, oil stock, friendship, groceries,, bonds, sympathy, appreciation whatever it may be. Sometimes our only purpose is to be understood, sometimes we want to Influence In-fluence the judgment or the will, at others to develop interest, and arouse emotion, and to persuade. I had a beautiful letter from a boy this morning. I had helped him a good deal ; I had dragged him back once or twice from intellectual and moral failure, and. he was now climbing climb-ing up slowly, but surely, to success. What he wanted to show me in his letter let-ter was gratitude, appreciation. He wanted to make it clear to me that he understood what I had been trying to do for him, and that he would never forget it, and he did the job very well. There was another letter from a man who wanted to sell me my winter's win-ter's supply of coal. His was a very specific letter, logical and direct. It was made up of figures, of statistics, of relative prices, of the results of chemical analysis, with a final emphasis empha-sis on the importance of making the deal quickly, and taking advantage of the market. He got off onto no byroads, by-roads, he was guilty of no flight of Imagination, he had in mind the one object of selling me coal, and he stuck to that religiously. Unfortunately I had already bought my coal, or I ami sure his logic would have won my trade. To write the best letter, one must know his man, and must study what will most strongly appeal to him. and so the best letter Is always a personal one. If I write to you the same letter that I send to a thousand other people, It will be like a proprietary medicine concocted to do something for every malady, but there will be little that Is personal In it. There will he a large mortality in the lists of those to whom the stock letter Is sent. There are infinite possibilities in the writing of letters in doing business, In forming friendships and keeping them, in influencing character, in revealing re-vealing personality. It is an art that can be learned, but the learning will require close observation, care, the exercise ex-ercise of judgment and good taste. It will require a knowledge of the individual indi-vidual and application of that knowledge knowl-edge to the individual, but when once learned it is one of the most valuable assets that a man can have. ( 1925, by Western Newspaper Union) |