But this truth is no reason for “answering back” the critics who do not appreciate it. Nothing is quite true--except The Incarnation--a naïve statement you may call it, but as a corollary of the epigram, true too! It is better, by far, to realize that modern criticism is most valuable from the purely literary point of view, and yet that the purely literary point of view is only one side of the model the artist must study before he learns how to draw. Therefore, when any critic tells me of this or that fault in technique, I take his expert opinion for what it is worth--an expert opinion--and try to learn from his criticism. I try to learn and do better. When the post-bag discloses a criticism obviously animated by personal prejudice or dictated by the religious politics of the paper in which it appears, I grin and bear it--though I don’t like it!--and console myself with the verse composed by the American poet whose critics were _always_ unfair, or at least he said so-- “The cow is in the garden, The cat is in the lake, The pig is in the hammock, What difference _does_ it make!” No author, who has a public at all, suffers from _criticism_ which is fair or even from _criticism_ which is unfair. An author is not well advised in publicly answering or combating either. When Disraeli said that the critics were the “people who had failed in literature and art,” he forgot that bad wine often makes excellent vinegar. I am quite certain that I have never suffered in the suffrages of my readers--and so in pocket!--from hostile criticism. And I have had any amount of it--the little green wrapper is not always pleasant reading. But I have never shouted out that I have been personally hurt or wounded by hostile criticism, and I certainly never shall. The days are past when the _Quarterly_ could kill Keats, and the days have not arrived when the reprobatory finger which is sometimes wagged at one can take one’s bread-and-butter away. But sometimes--and now, please, I unsheathe my toy sword, or at least flourish my cane--the postman brings something that cannot hurt one seriously, though it stings. This something is not criticism at all. It stings, not because of the actual attempt--even the smallest plants cannot grow unhampered by insect life--but because, puny as it may be, it is so manifestly unfair. In this regard I can sympathize with Miss Corelli because, however the critics may write of her books from the literary pedestal, they sometimes write of her, from a shelter trench, in a very different way. One morning I read a little sneer about myself which was entirely without justification or explanation. It occurred in a Catholic magazine, which I will call _The Thesaurus_, dated June 1906, and was written by the editor, who may be designated as the Rev. Mr. Roget. Here it is:--