Eight or Nine Wise Words About Letter-Writing
1865
Eight or Nine Wise Words About Letter-Writing is a practical guide by Lewis Carroll, first published in 1865. This essay provides useful tips for composing and sending letters, emphasizing the importance of proper greetings, legible handwriting, and appropriate closings. Carroll's whimsical style makes the advice entertaining, while his insights into letter etiquette highlight the art of correspondence as an enjoyable form of communication. The work is notable for its inclusion in the 'Wonderland' Postage-Stamp-Case, reflecting its significance in both literature and philately.
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“A great deal of the bad writing in the world comes simply from writing too quickly. Of course you reply, “I do it to save time”. A very good object, no doubt: but what right have you to do it at your friend’s expense? Isn’t his time as valuable as yours?””
— Lewis Carroll
“A few more Rules may fitly be given here, for correspondence that has unfortunately become .One is, . When once you have said your say, fully and clearly, on a certain point, and have failed to convince your friend, : to repeat your arguments, all over again, will simply lead to his doing the same; and so you will go on, like a Circulating Decimal.””
— Lewis Carroll
“If, in picking a quarrel, each party declined to go more than three-eighths of the way, and if, in making friends, each was ready to go five-eighths of the way”
— Lewis Carroll
