For a card party My dear Mrs. King, 500 Park Avenue Will you and Mr. King join us on Thursday evening next at We expect to have several tables, and we do hope you bridge? can be with us. March the eighteenth Cordially yours, Katherine Gerard Evans. Sometimes the visiting card is used with the date and the word "Cards" written in the lower corner as in the visiting-card invitation to a dance. This custom is more often used for the more elaborate affairs. Miscellaneous invitations The following are variations of informal party and other invitations: My dear Alice, 83 Woodlawn Avenue, November 4, 1921. I am having a little party on Thursday evening next and I want very much to have you come. If you wish me to arrange for an escort, let me know if you have any preference. Sincerely yours, Helen Westley. 1Or whatever the game may be. May 12, 1922. 500 Park Avenue, My dear Alice, On Saturday next I am giving a small party for my niece, Miss Edith Rice of Albany, and I should like very much to have her meet you. I hope you can come. Very sincerely yours, Katherine G. Evans. THE LETTER OF CONDOLENCE A letter of condolence may be written to relatives, close friends, and to those whom we know well. When the recipient of the condolatory message is simply an acquaintance, it is in better taste to send a visiting card with "sincere sympathy." Flowers may or may not accompany the card. But in any case the letter should not be long, nor should it be crammed with sad quotations and mushy sentiment. Of course, at best, writing a condolence is a nice problem. Do not harrow feelings by too-familiar allusions to the deceased. The letter should be sent immediately upon receiving news of death. When a card is received, the bereaved family acknowledge it a few weeks later with an engraved acknowledgment on a black-bordered card. A condolatory letter may be acknowledged by the recipient or by a relative or friend who wishes to relieve the bereaved one of this task. Formal acknowledgment engraved on card Mrs. Gordon Burroughs and Family Your kind expression of sympathy The cards, however, may be engraved with a space for the name to be filled in: Gratefully acknowledge Kind expression of sympathy When the letter of condolence is sent from a distance, it is acknowledged by a note from a member of the bereaved family. When the writer of the condolence makes the customary call afterward, the family usually makes a verbal acknowledgment and no written reply is required. Letters of condolence (A) My dear Mrs. Burroughs, May every consolation be given you in your great loss. Kindly accept my deepest sympathy. October 4, 1921 Sincerely yours, Jane Everett. (B) My dear Mrs. Burroughs, It is with the deepest regret that we learn of your Please accept our united and heartfelt sympathies. Very sincerely yours, bereavement. October 5, 1921 (C) Katherine Gerard Evans. My dear Eleanor, May I express my sympathy for you in the loss of your dear mother, even though there can be no words to comfort you? She was so wonderful to all of us that we can share in some small part in your grief. With love, I am Affectionately yours, Ruth Evans. July 8, 1922 (D) My dear Mrs. Burroughs, I am sorely grieved to learn of the death of your husband, for whom I had the greatest admiration and regard. Please accept my heartfelt sympathy. Yours sincerely, October 6, 1921 A letter of condolence that is something of a classic is Abraham Lincoln's famous letter to Mrs. Bixby, the bereaved mother of five sons who died for their country: Dear Madam: Washington, November 21, 1864. I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. Yours very sincerely and respectfully, Abraham Lincoln. This is the letter1 that Robert E. Lee, when he was president of Washington College, wrote to the father of a student who was drowned: Washington College, My dear Sir: Before this you have learned of the affecting death of your son. I can say nothing to mitigate your grief or to relieve your sorrow; but if the sincere sympathy of his comrades and friends and of the entire community can bring you any consolation, I can assure you that you possess it in its fullest extent. When one, in the pureness and freshness of youth, before having been con 1From "Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee,” by Capt. Robert E. Lee. Copyright, 1904, by Doubleday, Page & Co. |