The book was carefully enough
written, and I have been a good deal surprised to find that it has
met with considerable disapproval, and even derision, on the part
of many reviewers. It has been called morbid and indolent, and
decadent, and half a hundred more ugly adjectives. Now I do not for
an instant question the right of a single one of these
conscientious persons to form whatever opinion they like about my
book, and to express it in any terms they like; they say, and
obviously feel, that the thought of the book is essentially thin,
and that the vein in which it is written is offensively
egotistical. I do not dispute the possibility of their being
perfectly right. An artist who exhibits his paintings, or a writer
who publishes his books, challenges the criticisms of the public;
and I am quite sure that the reviewers who frankly disliked my
book, and said so plainly, thought that they were doing their duty
to the public, and warning them against teaching which they
believed to be insidious and even immoral. I honour them for doing
this, and I applaud them, especially if they did violence to their
own feelings of courtesy and urbanity in doing so.
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