Page:When You Write a Letter (1922).pdf/177

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have developed between us outside of his store as by those which are shown at the particular moment of doing business. The fact that he sends me a lithographed postal card when he is at Palm Beach or writes me a letter of congratulations on my birthday induces me indirectly to get a new spring suit at his establishment, and I do not believe that he intends this result at all when he takes the time to write me. But it is an evidence of good salesmanship whether it is practiced by the minister or the milkman. It develops one's sympathies, it widens one's interests, it robs one of selfishness and cultivates in one some of the social graces which might otherwise be lacking. It is a sort of humanizer, a broadening, refining influence which is good for every man.

These letters should not be long; they require no literary skill to make them effective. They should be direct, sincere, genuine; they should come from the heart; nothing would show so quickly as hypocrisy; nothing would be so ineffective as to overdo or exaggerate the feeling or the sentiments or the emotions expressed. The writer should say what he feels and feel