A. Always, if I know who he is before I begin to read. But it is hazardous work to say such-and-such a work is by such-and-such a man unless there are internal evidences aside from the style. Once a book was sent to me for criticism. Before I opened it I lent it to a waggish friend of mine, and he returned it next day. I looked at the title-page, saw that it was by an absolutely unknown man and that the scene was laid in India, and, of course, I felt safe in giving it fits on the principle that Rudyard Kipling is not likely to be equaled in this generation as a depicter of Indian life. Well, I said that it was painfully crude and amateurish; that it might do for the “Servants’ Own,” but was not a book for ladies and gentlemen; that it had absolutely no style or local coloring; that the scene might as well have been laid in Kamchatka; and that it was marked by but one thing, audacity, for the author had borrowed some of Kipling’s characters—to the extent of the names only. In short, I had fun with that book, for I knew that my fellow-critics would with one accord turn and rend it. By mere chance I didn’t sign it.
Q. And who had written the book?
A. Why, Kipling. My friend had cut another name out of a book and had pasted it so neatly over Kipling’s wherever his occurred that I was, of course, taken unawares. You can’t bank on style. Look how positive people were Mark Twain had not written “Jeanne d’Arc.”
I here interrupted the flow of his conversation to say: “Your experience is not unlike that of the reviewer who criticized ‘Silas Lapham,’ and who had a sort of hazy notion from the similarity of titles that it was by the author of ‘Silas Marner.’ You may remember, it created a good deal of amusement at the time. He said that it was a mistake for George Eliot to try to write a novel of American life; that the vital essence—American humor—was lacking; that Silas Lapham was a dull Englishman transplanted bodily into a very British Boston; that his daughters were mere puppets, and the attempts at Americanisms doleful in the extreme. He concluded by saying that her ‘Romola’ had shown that she was best on British soil, and that she would better keep to the snug little isle in the future.”
“Yes,” said he, with a grin; “I remember that. It was my first criticism. Most people supposed it was a humorous skit, even the editors who accepted it, but I never was more in earnest. I was young then.”
Q. If you received a book to review with the name of Hardy on the title-page, would you give it a good send-off?
A. I certainly should, for I am a great admirer of Hardy; but I should prefer to wait until some one else had done so, for fear it might be another put-up job and turn out to be the work of some fifth-rate English author.
I then brought him out of his trance. He sat silent for a moment. I picked up the “Saturday Review” from the table and said, “Criticism is a very noble calling.”