When Did You Last Write A Letter With Pen and Paper?

My handwriting is atrocious.  I will blame it on Mrs. F., my fifth grade teacher who kept plucking the pencil out of my left hand and shoving it in my right hand.  If truth be told--regardless of what hand I write with--it is bad.  It is sort of a cross between chicken scratchings and a doctor on a prescription pad. 

At a recent auction I purchased a book "The New Standard Business and Social Letter Writer Illustrated" from 1911 by Alfred Chambers. A great vintage book from the heyday of quality letter writing.  This 275 page book gives examples of any kind of possible letter you might want to send.  And certainly some topics that have really never occurred to me.

The book is full of standard, lovely worded sample letters for thanks yous and for sympathy.  But then a few more curiously interesting. 

Did you know there are letters for:
+Asking for a vacation
+From ranch owners shipping cattle
+To a dressmaker for extravagant charges
+To an artist about a portrait
+Concerning a furnished country house
+A little girl to her absent mother
+Recommending a governess
+Marriage proposal from butler to a cook (How very Downton Abbey!)
+Proposal to a wealthy widow
+Gentleman to his fiancee complaining of her coldness  (take a hint Bub!)
+A gentleman sending a song to a young lady
+A little girl asking a friend to tea

The list goes on.  It is a remarkable read.  You can get your own copy by visiting www.abebooks.com and searching for it.

Twitter and facebook take note.  Dashing out typed notes where words are characters takes no skill or thought--they are just  words.  This book is from the age  when folks took care in corresponding.  Lecture over--you'll love the book.