[3] Speech of Chauncey M. Depew at the seventy-fourth anniversary
banquet of the New England Society in the City of New York, December 22,
1879.




MEN OF LETTERS

BY JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE


Sir Francis Grant, Your Royal Highness, My Lords, and Gentlemen:--While
I feel most keenly the honor which you confer upon me in connecting my
name with the interests of literature, I am embarrassed, in responding,
by the nature of my subject. What is literature, and who are men of
letters? From one point of view we are the most unprofitable of
mankind--engaged mostly in blowing soap-bubbles. From another point of
view we are the most practical and energetic portion of the community.
If literature be the art of employing words skilfully in representing
facts, or thoughts, or emotions, you may see excellent specimens of it
every day in the advertisements in our newspapers. Every man who uses a
pen to convey his meaning to others--the man of science, the man of
business, the member of a learned profession--belongs to the community
of letters. Nay, he need not use his pen at all. The speeches of great
orators are among the most treasured features of any national
literature. The orations of Mr. Grattan are the text-books in the
schools of rhetoric in the United States. Mr. Bright, under this aspect
of him, holds a foremost place among the men of letters of England.