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.