The Fashionable American Letter Writer, Or, The Art of Polite Correspondence ... |
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Common terms and phrases
acquaint advice affairs affection affectionate father agreeable amusement ancholy answer appear assure attention bad beginning bad company beauty behaviour believe brother cacy character choly companions conditional mood conduct connexions consider conversation convince daugh dear Bill dear girl DEAR SIR delicacy desire dutiful daughter endeavour esteem excuse fault favour fond fortune friendship gentleman give greatest happiness heart honour hope husband imagination indulgence kind Let me beg LETTER lover madam manner marriage marry master mean melan ment merit mind mother nature ness never object obliged occasion open vowels passion perhaps Persian empire person pleased pleasure portunities possess Princes of Persia promise prudence Quintilian reason received respect sense sensible sentence sentiments sincere friend sister sorry spects style taste temn temper tender thing thought tion Tradesman vanity virtue wife wish woman words worthy write Young Lady
Popular passages
Page 179 - The purpose for which letters are written when no intelligence is communicated or business transacted, is to preserve in the minds of the absent either love or esteem; to excite love we must impart pleasure, and to raise esteem we must discover abilities.
Page 178 - ... concomitants, and trace them to their consequences. If a disputed position is to be established, or a remote principle to be investigated, he may detail his reasonings with all the nicety of syllogistic method.
Page 156 - He likewise entails the worst diseases on his wife and children, if he has the misfortune to have any. If you have a sense of religion yourselves, do not think of husbands who have none. If they have tolerable understandings they will be glad that you have religion, for their own sakes, and for the sake of their families; but it will sink you in their esteem.
Page 165 - Custom has made dancing sometimes necessary for a young man ; therefore mind it while you learn it, that you may learn to do it well, and not be ridiculous, though in a ridiculous act.
Page xxiii - ... 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 xxxii - Where it shines in an eminent degree, it has preserved several poems for many ages, that have nothing else to recommend them; and where all the other beauties are present, the work appears dry and insipid if this single one be wanting. It has something in it like creation; it bestows a kind of existence and draws up to the reader's view several objects which are not to be found in being.
Page xxx - 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 na.
Page 78 - But I have a better opinion of you than to entertain any such fears. I have left the time to your own appointment, and let me beg that you will continue in the practice of that virtuous education which you have received. Virtue is its own reward, and I cannot be unhappy with the man who prefers the duties of religion to gaiety and dissipation. I am yours sincerely. LETTER 125.
Page 178 - But it is natural to depart from familiarity of language upon occasions not familiar. Whatever elevates the sentiments will consequently raise the expression ; whatever fills us with hope or terrour, will produce some perturbation of images and some figurative distortions of phrase.
Page 101 - I desire is to have them engraven on my heart. My dear madam, I love religion, I love virtue, and I hope no consideration will ever lead me from those duties, in which alone I expect future happiness. Let me beg to hear from you often, and I hope that my whole future conduct will convince the best of parents, that I am what she wishes me to be. I am, honoured madam, your dutiful daughter.