write to each other rarely; and that, although letters are most valued
by those who are far from home and long absent, yet it is precisely in
the case of prolonged separation that the chain of friendly
communication is apt gradually to slacken until it becomes entirely
disconnected. So long, indeed, as men depended for news on private
sources, there was always a kind of obligation to write; but the
telegraph and the newspaper have now monopolised the Intelligence
Department. On the whole, it may be concluded that the art of
letter-writing flourishes best within a limited radius of distance,
among persons living neither very near to each other nor yet far
apart, who meet occasionally yet not often, and who are within the
same range of social, political, and intellectual influences. Its best
period is probably before the advent of copious indefatigable
journalism, before men have taken to publishing letters in the morning
papers, and when they have not yet acquired the economical habit of
reserving all their valuable ideas and information for signed articles
in some monthly review.

It was under these conditions that the letters of eminent men in the
eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth century were
generally written. In the former century letter-writing was
undoubtedly a recognised form of high literary workmanship, with close
affinities on one side to the diary or private journal, and on another
to the essay. Long, continuous, and intimate correspondence, as in the
case of Swift and Walpole, gravitated toward the journal;
dissertations on literature, politics, and manners were more akin to
the essay; while in the hands of the novelist the journalistic series
of letters took artificial development into a method of story-telling.
On the other side, the tendency of epistles to become essays reached
its climax in the letters of Burke, some of which are only
distinguishable from brilliant pamphlets by the formal address and
subscription.

With the nineteenth century begins an era of amusing and animated
letter-writing. The classic and somewhat elaborate style of the
preceding age falls into disuse; the essayist draws gradually back
into a department of his own; the new school reflects, as is natural,
the general tendency of English literature toward a livelier and more
varied movement, with a wider range of subjects and sympathies. In his
letters, as in his poetry, the precursor of the Naturalistic schoo