belles-lettres

“Both anatomy and belles-lettres are of equally noble descent,” Chekhov once wrote to his publisher, adding that they share “identical goals and an identical enemy—the Devil.”

It's hard to pinpoint exactly what separates a mere commentator from a producer of belles-lettres, but you know it when you read it.

More recently in Carmel there have been a great number of literary men about, but there is not the old flavor, the old dignity of the true belles-lettres.

“It gives voice to every possible articulation of crime and mystery in belles-lettres,” she said.

Dandies, it seems, are dandy; but belles-lettres is better.