CHAPTER EIGHT: CORRESPONDENCE AND INVITATIONS
Perfect Behavior | ||
CORRESPONDENCE
IT is narrated of a well-known English lady (who is noted on the other side of the Atlantic for the sharpness of her wit) that on one occasion, when a vainglorious American was boasting of his country's prowess in digging the Panama Canal, she calmly waited until he had finished and then replied, with an indescribable smile, "Ah—but you Americans do not know how to write letters." Needless to say the discomfited young man took himself off at the earliest opportunity.
There is much truth, alas, in the English lady's clever retort, for the automatic typewriter, the telegraph, and the penny postal card have done much to cause a gradual decline in the gentle art of correspondence. As one American woman recently remarked to a
172
CHAPTER EIGHT: CORRESPONDENCE AND INVITATIONS
Perfect Behavior | ||