Study the letters the janitor carries out in your waste-basket-- they lack the red blood of originality. Except for one here and one there they are stereotyped, conventional, long, uninteresting, tiresome. They have no individuality; they are poor representatives of an alert, magnetic personality.

Yet there is no legerdemain about writing a good letter; it is neither a matter of luck nor of genius. Putting in the originality that will make it pull is not a secret art locked up in the mental storerooms of a few successful writers; it is purely a question of study and the application of definite principles.

A lawyer is successful only in proportion to the understanding he has of the law--the study he puts on his cases; a physician's success depends upon his careful consideration of every symptom and his knowledge of the effect of every drug or treatment that he may prescribe. And it is no different with correspondents. They cannot write letters that will pulsate with a vital message unless they study their proposition in detail, visualize the individuals to whom they are writing, consider the language they use, the method of presenting their arguments, their inducements--there is no point from the salutation to the signature that is beneath consideration. You cannot write letters that pull without hard study any more than the doctor can cure his patients or the lawyer win his cases without brain work.

So many letters are insipid because the correspondents do not have time or do not appreciate the necessity for taking time to consider the viewpoint of their readers or for studying out new methods of presenting their proposition. Yet the same respect that would be given to a salesman may be secured for a letter. Any one of four attitudes will secure this attention. First of all, there may be a personal touch and an originality of thought or expression that commands immediate attention; in the second place, one can make use of the man-to-man appeal; then there is the always-forceful, never-to-be-forgotten "you" element; and finally, there are news items which are nearly always interest-getters.

By any one of these appeals, or better, by a combination of appeals, a letter can be given an individuality, a vitality, that will make it rise above the underbrush of ordinary business correspondence.

To begin with, vapid words and stereotyped expressions should be eliminated, for many a good message has become mired in stagnant language. So many correspondents, looking for the easiest road to travel, fall into the rut that has been worn wide and deep by the multitudes passing that way. The trouble is not the inability of writers to acquire a good style or express themselves forcibly; the trouble is mental inertia--too little analytical thought is given to the subject matter and too little serious effort is made to find an original approach.

Most business letters are cold, impersonal, indifferent: "Our fall catalogue which is sent to you under separate cover;" "We take pleasure in advising you that;" "We are confident that our goods will give you entire satisfaction," and so on--hackneyed expressions without end--no personality--no originality--no vitality.