The Fashionable American Letter Writer, Or, The Art of Polite Correspondence: Containing a Variety of Plain and Elegant Letters on Business, Love, Courtship, Marriage, Relationship, Friendship, &c : with Forms of Complimentary Cards : to the Whole is Prefixed Directions for Letter Writing, and Rules for Composition |
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Common terms and phrases
acquaint advice affairs affection affectionate father agreeable answer assure attention bad beginning bad company bad education beauty behaviour believe brother cerning character Cicero circumstances composition conduct consider conversation convince creditors daugh dear Bill DEAR SIR desire dutiful daughter endeavour epistolary esteem excuse expression fault favour Fene fond fortune friendship Gentleman give greatest happiness hear heart HONOURED SIR hope husband ingra kind Let me beg LETTER lover madam manner marriage marry master mean ment mind mother nature never nexion objects obliged occasion open vowels parents passion payment perhaps person pleased pleasure portunity present Princes of Persia promise proper prudence Quintilian reason received respect rience rules satisfaction sense sensible sent sentence sentiments sider sincere friend sister sorry style tell tender thing thought tion virtue wish woman words worthy write Young Lady Young Tradesman
Popular passages
Page xxvi - In their prosperity, my friends *' shall never hear of me ; in their adversity, always.
Page xxviii - Allegories, when well chosen, are like so many tracks of light in a discourse, that make everything about them clear and beautiful. A noble metaphor, when it is placed to an advantage, casts a kind of glory round it, and darts a lustre through a whole sentence...
Page xxviii - ... of the visible parts of nature, often draw from them their similitudes, metaphors, and allegories. By these allusions a truth in the understanding is as it were reflected by the imagination ; we are able to see something like colour and shape in a notion, and to discover a scheme of thoughts traced out upon matter. And here the mind receives a great deal of satisfaction, and has two of its faculties gratified at the same time, while the fancy is busy in copying after the understanding, and transcribing...
Page xxv - This must vary with the nature of the sentence. Perspicuity must ever be studied in the first place; and the nature of our language allows no great liberty in the choice of collocation. For the most part, with us, the important words are placed in the beginning of the sentence.
Page 159 - I was an absolute pedant ; when I talked my best, I quoted Horace; when I aimed at being facetious, I quoted Martial; and when I had a mind to be a fine gentleman, I talked Ovid.
Page xxviii - The pleasures of the imagination are not wholly confined to such particular authors as are conversant in material objects, but are often to be met with among the polite masters of morality, criticism, and other speculations abstracted from matter, who, though they do not directly -treat of the visible parts of nature, often draw from them their similitudes, metaphors, and allegories. By these allusions, a truth in the understanding is, as it were, reflected by the imagination. We are able to see...
Page xx - ... we employ. There is, on certain occasions, a glow of composition which should be kept up, if we hope to express ourselves happily, though at the expense of allowing some inadvertencies to pass.
Page xxi - ... fondness for the expressions we have used be worn off, and the expressions themselves be forgotten ; and then, reviewing our work with a cool and critical eye, as if it were the performance of another, we shall discern many imperfections which at first escaped us.
Page 164 - Ttye intention of your being taught needlework', knitting, and such like, is not on account of the intrinsic value of all you can do with your hands, which is trifling, but to enable you to judge more perfectly of that kind of work, and to direct the execution of it in others.
Page xxii - Nothing merits the name of eloquent or beautiful, which is not suited to the occasion, and to the persons to whom it is addressed.