ADissertation on the Writing of Mean Letters

Bg Jacft Dionne

- -Orrt of all the habits that business men can contract, the worst is undoubtedly wife beating, and the second is unquestionably writing mean letters.

Both are indefensible, both are cowardly, and both are entirely without justification, or return on the investment.

A man writes thlt qeal letter, drops it in the mail box,-and it is gone ! He can never get it_back The little thing that caused him to write it soon disippears and is forgotten. _But the letter remains. And the bigger man you are supposi& to be, the littler that letter makes you appear.

The fellow on the receiving end of the line may not know the writer at all, may never have seen him, and mlri never see him. H-e must and will judge him, simply bi, the meanness of his letter. Ife can't know that this may be just ari uniortunite ttiUit oi the writer. He can't know that in his private life, and in-his personal habits, he is genial, kindly, friendly, possessing warmth of soul, and loving his fellow man.

All he can do is read the mean letter over, and wonder why God lets such crabs live on the lop gide of th-e earth; why He doesn't tip the sphere ohce in a while and rid the world of a few pests ?

Most of us know such men. And the only feeling we can get from coritemplation ofsuch a habit, is one of sadness that an othLrwise iise man riay belittle hims6ff and affront another man, for want of an injection of the milk of human kindness into his letter writing.

The man who is thoroughly worth while,iT- this world, is the one who never willingly and knowingly steps on the corns of another fellow, either by word or act. God and m-air both despise a grouch,. whether- he is grouchy in his letters, or in his personal life. The man whose ambition is to make a good and kindly impression on those with whom he comes in contact-to make them feel better and biightdr because they have talked with him or read a letter from him-is worth a dozen smirter men who let their tempers creep into their personal contacts.

There isn't the shadow of an excuse for writing mean letters" No situation that arises justifies them. Edmund Burke said_of B,enjamin Franklin: "Everything is,play to him," And that is the chief reason that Franklints memory is loved.

Iugene Field's letters were written sunshine, no matter how sick, ,or how hatassed, or in how much trouble he was, and the world that knew him, loved him for it.

{ h_1ve it Ty p..ossession a letter from Peter B. Kyne concerning a mutual friend, in y$"ft Kyne said: "He has known sorrow, and ingratitude, and trdachery, and broiren faith, altd unrequited,love, and a long Gethseman6 of pain, yet he has nlver been em- bittere4 nor ever spolien ill to any one, or of any one." Bei that man never wrote a mean letter. And isn't that a lovely thing to have said of you?

Writing mean letters is much woise than saying mean things vocally. The words may be forgotten. The letter remains.

And remember this: there isn't a man, woman, or child in this world, regardless of who or where they are, whose ill will or whose bad opinion any of us can ifoia to have.

Never write an ungenerous thing to any man on any subject. It is just a plain blunder, every time.