_No sooner said than done_. I soon found myself _the proud
possessor_ of that for which I had acknowledged _a long-felt
want_.

After _the last sad rites_ were over and her body was _consigned to
earth_, we began talking _along these lines_.

With _a few well-chosen words_ he _brought order out of chaos_.

The way my efforts were _nipped in the bud_ simply _beggars
description_. I am somewhat _the worse for wear. Hoping you are the
same_, I remain Yours sincerely, Ned Burke.

Finally, to the extent that you use slang at all, be its master instead of
its slave. You have many times been told that the overuse of slang
disfigures one's speech and hampers his standing with cultivated people.
You have also been told that slang constantly changes, so that one's
accumulations of it today will be a profitless clutter tomorrow. These
things are true, but an even more cogent objection remains. Slang is
detrimental to the formation of good intellectual habits. From its very
nature it cannot be precise, cannot discriminate closely. It is a vehicle
for loose-thinking people, it is fraught with unconsidered general
meanings, it moves in a region of mental mists. It could not flourish as
it does were fewer of us content to express vague thoughts and feelings
instead of those which are sharply and specifically ours. Unless,
therefore, you wish your intellectual processes to be as hazy and
haphazard as those of mental shirkers and loafers, you must eschew, not
necessarily all slang, but all heedless, all habitual use of it. Now and
then a touch of slang, judiciously chosen, is effective; now and then it
fulfils a legitimate purpose of language. But normally you should express