Paper should never be ruled, or highly scented, or odd in shape, or have elaborate or striking ornamentation.  Some people use smaller paper for notes, or correspondence cards, cut to the size of the envelopes.  Others use the same size for all correspondence and leave a wider margin in writing notes.

The flap of the envelope should be plain and the point not unduly long.  If the flap is square instead of being pointed, it may be allowed greater length without being eccentric.  Colored linings to envelopes are at present in fashion.  Thin white paper, with monogram or address stamped in gray to match gray tissue lining of the envelope is, for instance, in very best taste.  Young girls may be allowed quite gay envelope linings, but the device on the paper must be minute, in proportion to the gaiety of the color.

[Illustrations:  GOOD TASTE GOOD TASTE GOOD TASTE BAD TASTE BAD TASTE]

Writing paper for a man should always be strictly conservative.  Plain white or gray or granite paper, large in size and stamped in the simplest manner.  The size should be 5-3/4 x 7-1/2 or 6 x 8 or 5-1/8 x 8-1/8 or thereabouts.

A paper suitable for the use of all the members of a family has the address stamped in black or dark color, in plain letters at the top of the first page.  More often than not the telephone number is put in very small letters under that of the address, a great convenience in the present day of telephoning.  For example: 

       350 PARK AVENUE
    TELEPHONE 7572 PLAZA

=DEVICES FOR STAMPING=

As there is no such thing as heraldry in America, the use of a coat of arms is as much a foreign custom as the speaking of a foreign tongue; but in certain communities where old families have used their crests continuously since the days when they brought their device—­and their right to it—­from Europe, the use of it is suitable and proper.  The sight of this or that crest on a carriage or automobile in New York or Boston announces to all those who have lived their lives in either city that the vehicle belongs to a member of this or that family.  But for some one without an inherited right to select a lion rampant or a stag couchant because he thinks it looks stylish, is as though, for the same reason, he changed his name from Muggins to Marmaduke, and quite properly subjects him to ridicule. (Strictly speaking, a woman has the right to use a “lozenge” only; since in heraldic days women did not bear arms, but no one in this country follows heraldic rule to this extent.)

=THE PERSONAL DEVICE=

It is occasionally the fancy of artists or young girls to adopt some especial symbol associated with themselves.  The “butterfly” of Whistler for instance is as well-known as his name.  A painter of marines has the small outline of a ship stamped on his writing paper, and a New York architect the capital of an Ionic column.  A generation ago young women used to fancy such an intriguing symbol as a mask, a sphinx, a question mark, or their own names, if their names were such as could be pictured.  There can be no objection to one’s appropriation of such an emblem if one fancies it.  But Lilly, Belle, Dolly and Kitten are Lillian, Isabel, Dorothy and Katherine in these days, and appropriate hall-marks are not easily found.