is that the editor of a paper like yours should
appear to countenance the monstrous theory that the Government of a
country should exercise a censorship over imaginative literature. This
is a theory against which I, and all men of letters of my acquaintance,
protest most strongly; and any critic who admits the reasonableness of
such a theory shows at once that he is quite incapable of understanding
what literature is, and what are the rights that literature possesses. A
Government might just as well try to teach painters how to paint, or
sculptors how to model, as attempt to interfere with the style,
treatment and subject-matter of the literary artist, and no writer,
however eminent or obscure, should ever give his sanction to a theory
that would degrade literature far more than any didactic or so-called
immoral book could possibly do.

You then express your surprise that "so experienced a literary
gentleman" as myself should imagine that your critic was animated by any
feeling of personal malice towards him. The phrase "literary gentleman"
is a vile phrase, but let that pass.

I accept quite readily your assurance that your critic was simply
criticising a work of art in the best way that he could, but I feel that
I was fully justified in forming the opinion of him that I did. He
opened his article by a gross personal attack on myself. This, I need
hardly say, was an absolutely unpardonable error of critical taste.

There is no excuse for it except personal malice; and you, Sir, should
not have sanctioned it. A critic should be taught to criticise a work of
art without making any reference to the personality of the author. This,
in fact, is the beginning of criticism. However, it was not merely his
personal attack on me that made me imagine that he was actuated by
malice. What really confirmed me in my first impression was his
reiterated assertion that my book was tedious and dull.

Now, if I were criticising my book, which I have some thoughts of doing,
I think I would consider it my duty to point out that it is far too
crowded with sensational incident, and far too paradoxical in style, as
far, at any rate, as the dialogue goes. I feel that from a standpoint of
art there are true defects in the book. But tedious and dull the book is
not.

Your critic has cleared himself of the charge of personal malice, his
denial and yours being quite sufficient in the matter; but he has done
so only by a tacit admission that he