Whereunto echo echo shouts again,
Be all day long not noisy with your name.”
But others are not so reticent. For my part I cannot understand the attitude of the novelist who publishes shouts of resentment at criticism which is not to his liking—remember, in view of what I am going to say later, that I use the word criticism. The other day, while on a journey to the Riviera, I bought a copy of Miss Marie Corelli’s last book of essays, in Paris. I read it through the night until I fell asleep, and when the sun flooded the olive trees I took it up once more, and finished it just as we ran into Marseilles. I suppose that this lady is the most popular writer of the day. She is a great modern force; she reaches an enormous audience, and speaks straight to their hearts. I have heard dozens of men and women say that they prefer her to any author alive or dead. Now this is surely to be in a very splendid position, is it not? Why, then, should a woman whose talents have won for her such place and power, print an angry, comprehensive, and I am afraid sometimes, spiteful indictment of all critics? I can’t see her reason.
Destouches wrote:—
“La plainte est pour le fat, le bruit est pour le sot;
L’honnête homme hue s’éloigne et ne dit mot!”
Miss Corelli assumes that all the reviewers are venal and dishonest, and that because they do not praise her books, books which are so influential and popular, they are bad critics. Reviewers, take them all in all, are nothing of the sort. I have written hundreds of book reviews. I have reviewed for the Saturday Review, the Academy, and the Bookman, among other journals. Therefore you may assume that I met plenty of other critics, and know their polity and ways. We were all honest enough in those days—that I say without any doubt at all. I remember Mr. Frank Harris, the then editor of the Saturday, giving me a certain novel to review, and expressing himself with great point and freedom about it. As I was leaving his room he called me back, and said, as well as I can remember his words, “Remember that this is only my point of view, and what I want in this case is yours. You may like the stuff, and if you do, of course you will say so.”
I didn’t like it, and said so, but I have never forgotten the incident.
As I said in the beginning of this paper, directly my stories began to be occupied with religion as the force, qui fait le monde à la ronde, some of the critics began to be unkind. But what on earth is the use of wasting one’s own time, and the time of the public, in fussing and complaining? The people who said this about my work were quite sincere. Their opinion is quite as good as mine, however much I don’t agree with it. Quot homines tot sententiæ. My business is to earn a living for myself and for those who are dependent on me. Thank God I can do so. My duty is to hammer away at the doctrines in which I believe, and endeavour to get others to believe in them. Therefore I must not “call or cry aloud.” I must go on doing what I am doing, and doing it sans rançune.
Remember, and I wish Miss Corelli, for example, could see this also, that criticism of novels in our day is a purely literary criticism. The theory of modern criticism is that Art is a thing by itself and owes no duty to Ethics. The reason for Art is, art. Ten years ago I think I would almost have gone to the stake for this doctrine. I believed in it devoutly; I couldn’t be patient, even, in the presence of any one who argued otherwise. I well remember the indignant anger with which I repudiated the suggestion of my father, a clergyman, that when I grew older and had suffered, when I came into real contact with the great central facts of life, I should think very differently. He was perfectly right. Art is the essential part of fiction, but it is not destroyed because it is employed as the handmaid of an ethical standpoint.