It is now over a year since, in an article called "Fiction in the Pulpit," and published in the "Atlantic Monthly," I ventured to say, or rather I said without any consciousness of being venturesome, that the sole business of a novel-writer was to give us pleasure; his sole duty was to give it to us within decent and prescribed limits. It seemed to me then that the assertion was so self-evident as to be hardly worth the making; it was a little like saying an undisputed thing "in such a solemn way." I have learned since how profoundly I was mistaken in the temper, not of writers only, but of readers as well,—how far remote I stood from the current of ethical activity. It is needless to state that this later knowledge has been brought to me by the mouths of critics: sometimes by professional critics, who said their say in print; sometimes by amateur and neighborly critics, who expressed theirs frankly in speech. It is needless, also, to state that, of the two, the professional critics—brothers and sisters of my own household I count them—have been infinitely more tolerant of my shortcomings, more lenient in their remonstrances, more per-
