morality. Madness has been defined as a lack of consequence in ideas,
and can anything be less consequent than--we need look no further back
than Ibsen? The great genius who died in May last was decried by the
English people as one of the most immoral of writers; for twenty years
at least this opinion obtained in the press, and even among men of
letters; suddenly the opinion disappeared, it went out like the flame
of a candle; the text is the same, not a comma has been changed, yet
now everybody reads it differently. But I must not allow myself to be
drawn into speaking of the moral crusades directed against other
writers; the task is tempting, and I hope it will be undertaken one of
these days. Here, at all events, my concern is with my own writings,
as indicated by the title of the article, and it is doubtful if
reference to any book would make my point clearer than the tale of
what happened in America to my own book, "Esther Waters." The proof
sheets were sent in turn to three leading firms, Scribner, Harper, and
Appleton, and all three refused the book on the ground that, while
recognizing, etc., they did not think it was exactly the kind of book,
etc. Even experts make mistakes; this is not denied; what makes my
story so remarkable is that all three firms offered to publish an
authorized edition of the book as soon as news of its success in
England had been cabled to New York. Mr. Appleton, whom I met in
Paris, expressed his regret that expert opinion regarding this book
had been at fault. "The book," he said, "was quite a proper book to
publish, a most admirable book, which would do honor to any firm." I
answered: "Very likely all you say, Mr. Appleton, is true, but three
weeks ago the experts thought differently. How is it that an immoral
book can become moral in three weeks?" My next book, "Evelyn Innes,"
disturbed the house of Appleton as much as "Esther Waters," and a
gentleman of leisure connected with the firm was deputed to mark out
not the passages to which he himself took exception, but to which,