As I have expressed my opinions of other authors sharply, making them public with the proper disgust, others have done the same with me, which is but logical and natural, especially in the case of a writer such as myself, who holds that sympathy and antipathy are of the very essence of art.

My opponents and myself differ chiefly in the fact that I am more cynical than they, and so I disclose my personal animus quite ingenuously, which my enemies fail to do.

I hold that there are two kinds of morality; morality of work and morality of play. The morality of work is an immoral morality, which teaches us to take advantage of circumstances and to lie. The morality of play, for the reason that it deals with mere futilities, is finer and more chivalrous.

I believe that in literature and in all liberal arts, the morality should be the morality of play, while my opponents for the most part hold that the morality of literature should be the morality of work. I have never, consciously at least, been influenced in my literary opinions by practical considerations. My ideas may have been capricious, and they are,—they may even be bad,—but they have no ulterior practical motive.

My failure to be practical, together, perhaps, with an undue obtuseness of perception, brings me face to face with critics of two sorts: one, esthetic; the other, social.

My esthetic critics say to me:

"You have not perfected your style, you have not developed the technique of your novels. You can scarcely be said to be literate."

I shrug my shoulders and reply: "Are you sure?"

My social critics reproach me for my negative and destructive views. I do not know how to create anything, I am incapable of enthusiasm, I cannot describe life, and so on.

This feeling seems logical enough, if it is sincere, if it is honest, and I accept it as such, and it does not offend me.

But, as some of my esthetic critics tell me: "You are not an artist, you do not know how to write," without feeling any deep conviction on the subject, but rather fearing that perhaps I may be an artist after all and that at last somebody may come to think so, so among my critics who pose as defenders of society, there are those who are influenced by motives which are purely utilitarian.

I am reminded of servants shouting at a man picking flowers over the garden wall, or an apple from the orchard as he passes, who raise their voices as high as possible so as to make their officiousness known.

They shout so that their masters will hear.

"How dare that rascal pick flowers from the garden? How dare he defy us and our masters? Shall a beggar, who is not respectable, tell us that our laws are not laws, that our honours are not honours, and that we are a gang of accomplished idiots?"

Yes, that is just what I tell them, and I shall continue to do so as long as it is the truth.

Shout, you lusty louts in gaudy liveries, bark you little lap-dogs, guard the gates, you government inspectors and carabineers! I shall look into your garden, which is also my garden, I shall make off with anything from it that I am able, and I shall say what I please.