Still under the influence of P G Wodehouse, a book falls from my bookcase and lands on my lap. It’s a carefully-preserved specimen from childhood, The Correct Guide to Letter Writing by A Member of the Aristocracy. The third in a series of posts in tribute to the diminishing, if not the passing, of the magical medium of letters.
Read more …
*****
It’s one from the bookcase of my childhood. It was my mother’s. Its back is broken, it’s scrawled with the scribbles of my siblings (not mine; I reserved mine for uni) and was published by Frederick Warne and Co. Ltd of London and New York in 1930, the 42nd edition.
As a kid I suspect I loved “A Member of the Aristocracy” and the comfort of there being the right letter for every occasion. I also suspect fantasies of marrying said Member, courtesy of a diet rich in English Womens’ Weekly romances — “tuppenny terribles,” with fascinating photos of engagement rings on the back cover — from the age of about 8; it was only a few years ago I dreamt I was Mary Donaldson of Tasmania marrying Prince Frederick of Denmark, except he was ”Friedrich” and German and I had a perfect German accent.
Looking at the book now for the first proper time, like most artifacts of the past, I’m struck by its puzzles, curiosities and familiarities.
Puzzles
The two chief puzzles:
1. What dictated the use of the third person? The Member says in the Intro:
It may be said that the tendency of the times is to avoid a good deal of the formality which was once considered necessary, and among other things the use of the third person, in communications to even a comparative stranger, is not now insisted on so much as formerly.
But so many of the letters do insist:
In reply to Mrs. Honeywood’s letter Mrs. Newton begs to say that she is able to answer all her questions satisfactorily respecting Mary Brown …
I just can’t work out the pattern between first person and third person usage.
2. Just how did a “copying press” work? In the “strictly business style” of letter, The Member says, the letter-writer uses only the first and third pages, or the first and fourth pages, leaving “the other two unwritten upon,” so the letters can be conveniently “duplicated in the copying press.” But I can’t work out how this machine would have worked so that blank pages would have been a help.
The curiosities?
The curiosities abound. The descriptors of each letter occasion are funny and tender and read like stage directions:
- From a Lady purposing to get up a Bazaar
- From a Gentleman in India to a Friend in England, asking him to show Civility to a Family returning thither
- To the Superintendent of the Luggage Department concerning Lost Luggage: “Sir, On arriving here from Cambridge last evening by the 7:20 train, I found that a large leather portmanteau was missing from my luggage …”
- Answer to an Advertisement for a useful Companion: “… I have been accustomed to read aloud and to write letters from dictation, and to amuse elderly people …”
- To a Lady, indirectly inquiring after an Invalid
- To a Lady, offering a Song.
The familiarities
Like the curiosities, the familiarities are everywhere. But most of all in the immortal tale of true love not running smoothly. It all starts so promisingly:
- From a Gentleman to a Lady unaware of his Matrimonial Desires
- From a Gentleman to a Lady he has Seen but Twice
- To a Lady, from a Gentleman who is Doubtful of being accepted on account of his Small Means
- A Lady’s first letter to a Gentleman to whom she is Engaged
The doubts creep in …
- From a Lady to a Gentleman to whom she is engaged, refusing to name an Early Day for the Marriage
- From a Gentleman to a Lady to whom he is Engaged, confessing his Jealousy
- From a Lady to a Gentleman to whom she is Engaged, complaining of his Coldness
- From the Mother of a Young Lady to her Daughter’s Lover respecting a Quarrel
And sometimes, there’s just nothing for it other than recognition of Change of Feeling:
- From a Lady to a Gentleman to whom she is Engaged, breaking off her Engagement owing to Change of Feeling towards him.
*****
…..What dictated the use of the third person….?
The wish for formality, as the passage you quoted implied. That was then. Today, to use the third person conveys, I think, irony. It’s now an affectation.
I find of interest that the further back English goes, the more it resembles German. For instance, its frequent use of capital letters in the middle of sentences, although not always with nouns, as with German; and in its sentence structure eg “Knowest thou?”, rather than, “Do you know?”
Hello. Thanks for the insights. I hadn’t made the connection between capital letters and German. The other interesting thing about the first person/third person issue is that the Mary Brown being discussed, the one who originally wrote a letter applying for a position (her sample letter is also in the book), writes in the first person. In fact, all the samples in the book where someone is applying for a position are written in the first person.
So I wonder if this was just the convention for all job letters (showing deference, etc), or whether it was because the person writing would be of a lower class than the person to whom they were writing and they either didn’t know how to write in the third person, or didn’t know it was more correct.