sly, because I have no desire to
recommend these ideas as being my own theories. The personal background
rather detracts from than adds to the value of the thoughts, because
people can compare my theories with my practice, and show how lamentably
I fail to carry them out. But time after time I have been pulled
reluctantly out of my burrow, by what I still consider a wholly
misguided zeal for publicity, till I have decided that I will lurk no
longer. It was in this frame of mind that I published, under my own
name, a book called Beside Still Waters, a harmless enough volume, I
thought, which was meant to be a deliberate summary or manifesto of
these ideas. It depicted a young man who, after a reasonable experience
of practical life, resolved to retire into the shade, who in that
position indulged profusely in leisurely reverie. The book was carefully
enough written, and I have been a good deal surprised to find that it
has met with considerable disapproval, and even derision, on the part
of many reviewers. It has been called morbid and indolent, and decadent,
and half a hundred more ugly adjectives. Now I do not for an instant
question the right of a single one of these conscientious persons to
form whatever opinion they like about my book, and to express it in any
terms they like; they say, and obviously feel, that the thought of the
book is essentially thin, and that the vein in which it is written is
offensively egotistical. I do not dispute the possibility of their being
perfectly right. An artist who exhibits his paintings, or a writer who
publishes his books, challenges the criticisms of the public; and I am
quite sure that the reviewers who frankly disliked my book, and said
so plainly, thought that they were doing their duty to the public, and
warning them against teaching which they believed to be insidious
and even immoral. I honour them for doing this, and I applaud them,
especially if they did violence to their own feelings of courtesy and
urbanity in doing so. Then there were some good-natured reviewers
who practically said that the book was simply a collection of amiable
platitudes; but that if the public liked to read such stuff, they were
quite at liberty to do so. I admire these reviewers for a different
reason, partly for their tolerant permission to the public to read what
they choose, and still more because I like to think that there are so
many intelligent people in the world who are wearisomely famili