Obvious typographical errors have been corrected inthis text. For a complete list, please see the bottom ofthis document.
LONDON
G. BELL AND SONS, LTD.
NEW YORK: HARCOURT, BRACE AND CO.
1922
When my publishers were good enough to propose thatI should undertake this book, they were also good enoughto suggest that the Introduction should be of a charactersomewhat different from that of a school-anthology, andshould attempt to deal with the Art of Letter-writing, andthe nature of the Letter, as such. I formed a plan accordingly,by which the letters, and their separate PrefatoryNotes, might be as it were illustrations to the Introduction,which was intended in turn to be a guide tothem. Having done this with a proper Pourvu que Dieului prête vie referring to both book and author, I thoughtit well to look up next what had been done in the waybefore me, at least to the extent of what the LondonLibrary could provide me in circumstances of enforcedabstinence from the Museum and from "Bodley." Fromits catalogue I selected a curious eighteenth-century Artof Letter Writing, and four nineteenth and earliest twentiethcentury books—Roberts's History of Letter Writing (1843)with Pickering's ever-beloved title-page and his beautifulclear print; the Littérature Epistolaire of Barbey d'Aurevilly—acritic never to be neglected though always to beconsulted with eyes wide open and brain alert; finally,two Essays in Dr. Jessopp's Studies by a Recluse and inthe Men and Letters of Mr. Herbert Paul, once a veryfrequent associate of mine. The title of the first men[vi]tionedbook speaks it pretty thoroughly. "The Art ofLetter Writing: Divided into Two Parts. The First:Containing Rules and Directions for writing letters on allsorts of subjects [this line as well as several others isRubricked] with a variety of examples equally elegant andinstructive. The Second: a Collection of Letters on theMost interesting occasions of life in which are inserted—Theproper method of Addressing Persons of all ranks;some necessary orthographical directions, the right formsof message for cards; and thoughts upon a multiplicityof subjects; the whole composed upon an entirely newplan—chiefly calculated for the instruction of youth, butmay be [sic] of singular service to Gentlemen, Ladies andall others who are desirous to attain the true style andmanner of a polite epistolary intercourse." May ourown little book have no worse fortune! Mr. Roberts'savowedly restricts itself to the fifth century as a terminusad quem, though it professes to start "from the earliesttimes," and its seven hundred pages deal very honestlyand fully with their subjects. The essays of Dr. Jessoppand Mr. Paul are of course merely Essays, of a score ortwo of pages: though the first is pretty wide in its scope.There would be nothing but good to be said of either, ifboth had not been, not perhaps blasphemous but parsimoniousof praise, towards "Our Lady of the Rocks." Itcannot be too often or too solemnly laid down that anadoration of Madame de Sévigné as a letter-writer is notcrotchet or fashion or affectation—is no result of merelytaking authority on trust. The more one reads her, andthe more one reads others, the more convinced should onebe of her absolute non-pareility i