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."