Perfect Behavior: A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in All Social Crises

LETTERS TO NEWSPAPERS, MAGAZINES, ETC. Another type of public correspondence is the letter which is intended for publication in some periodical. This is usually written by elderly gentlemen with whiskers and should be cast in the following form: A Correct Letter from an Elderly Gentleman to the Editor of a Newspaper or Magazine To the Editor: SIR: On February next, Deo volente, I shall have been a constant reader of your worthy publication for forty-one years. I feel, sir, that that record gives me the right ipso facto to offer my humble criticism of a statement made in your November number by that worthy critic of the drama, Mr. Heywood Broun. Humanum est errare, and I am sure that Mr. Broun (with whom I have unfortunately not the honour of an acquaintance) will forgive me for calling his attention to what is indeed a serious, and I might say, unbelievable, misstatement. In my younger days, now long past, it was not considered infra dig for a critic to reply to such letters as this, and I hope that Mr. Broun will deem this epistle worthy of consideration, and recognize the justice of my complaint. I remember well a controversy that raged between critic and public for many weeks in the days when Joe Jefferson was playing Rip Van Winkle. Ah, sir, do you remember (but, of course, you don’t) that entrance of Joe in the first act with his dog Schneider? That was not my first play by many years, but I believe that it is still my favorite. I think the first time I ever attended a dramatic performance was in the winter of ’68 when I was a student at Harvard College. Five of us freshmen went into the old Boston Museum to see Our American Cousin.