It was an irreverent book--it was a devout book. It was a strong
book--it was a weak book. It was a religious book--it was an immoral
book (I have forgotten just why; in fact, I think I never knew). It was
a good book--it was a bad book. It was calculated to comfort the
comfortless--it was calculated to lead the impressionable astray. It was
an accession to Christian literature--it was a disgrace to the religious
antecedents of the author; and so on, and so forth.

At first, when some of these reviews fell in my way, I read them,
knowing no better. But I very soon learned to let them alone. The kind
notices, while they gave me a sort of courage which by temperament
possibly I needed more than all young writers may, overwhelmed me, too,
by a sense of my own inadequacy to be a teacher of the most solemn of
truths, on any such scale as that towards which events seemed to be
pointing. The unfair notices put me in a tremor of distress. The brutal
ones affected me like a blow in the face from the fist of a ruffian.
None of them, that I can remember, ever helped me in any sense
whatsoever to do better work.

I quickly came to the conclusion that I was not adapted to reading the
views of the press about my own writing. I made a vow to let them alone;
and, from that day to this, I have kept it. Unless in the case of
something especially brought to my attention by friends, I do not read
any reviews of my books. Of course, in a general way, one knows if some
important pen has shown a comprehension of what one meant to do and
tried to do, or has spattered venom upon one's poor achievement. Quite
fairly, one cannot sit like the Queen in the kitchen, eating only bread
and honey--and venom disagrees with me.

I sometimes think--if I may take advantage of this occasion to make the