Viewed then as one of the commonest means of communication between man and man, it is well to be able to write a good letter; just as it is well to know how to tie a bowknot, cast an account, carve a joint, shave oneself, or meet any other of the ordinary occasions of life. But tons of letters are emptied from the mail bags every day, and burned, which serve no other than a momentary end. The art of composing letters worth keeping and printing is a part of the art literary. The word letters and the word literature are indeed used interchangeably; we speak of a man of letters, polite letters, the _belles lettres_, _literae humaniores_. How far are such expressions justified? Manifestly a letter, or a collection of letters, has not the structural unity and the deliberate artistic appeal of the higher forms of literature. It is not like an epic poem, a play, a novel or an ode. It has an art of its own, but an art of a particular kind, the secret of which is artlessness. It is not addressed to the public but to an individual and should betray no consciousness of any third party. It belongs, therefore, in the class with journals and table talk and, above all, autobiography, of which it constitutes the very best material. A book is written for everybody, a diary for oneself, a letter for one’s friend. While a letter, therefore, cannot quite claim a standing among the works of the creative imagination, yet it comes so freshly out of life and is so true in self-expression that, in some moods, we prefer it to more artificial or more objective kinds of literature; just as the advertisements in an old newspaper or magazine often have a greater veracity and freshness as dealing with the homely, actual needs and concerns of the time, than the stories, poems, and editorials whose fashion has faded.