(and spoil) M. Anatole France's
definition of a good critic, then let us say that the good author is he
who contemplates without marked joy or excessive sorrow the adventures
of his soul amongst criticisms. Far be from me the intention to mislead
an attentive public into the belief that there is no criticism at sea.
That would be dishonest, and even impolite. Everything can be found
at sea, according to the spirit of your quest--strife, peace, romance,
naturalism of the most pronounced kind, ideals, boredom, disgust,
inspiration--and every conceivable opportunity, including the
opportunity to make a fool of yourself--exactly as in the pursuit of
literature. But the quarter-deck criticism is somewhat different from
literary criticism. This much they have in common, that before the one
and the other the answering back, as a general rule, does not pay.

Yes, you find criticism at sea, and even appreciation--I tell you
everything is to be found on salt water--criticism generally impromptu,
and always viva voce, which is the outward, obvious difference from the
literary operation of that kind, with consequent freshness and vigour
which may be lacking in the printed word. With appreciation, which comes
at the end, when the critic and the criticised are about to part, it
is otherwise. The sea appreciation of one's humble talents has the
permanency of the written word, seldom the charm of variety, is formal
in its phrasing. There the literary master has the superiority, though
he, too, can in effect but say--and often says it in the very phrase--"I
can highly recommend." Only usually he uses the word "We," there being
some occult virtue in the first person plural, which makes it specially
fit for critical and royal declarations. I have a small handful of these
sea appreciations, signed by various masters, yellowing slowly in my
writing-table's left-hand drawer, rustling under my reverent touch, like
a handful of dry leaves plucked for a tender memento from the tree of
knowledge. Strange! It seems that it is for these few bits of paper,
headed by the names of a few ships and signed by the names of a
few Scots and English shipmasters, that I have faced the astonished
indignations, the mockeries and the reproaches of a sort hard to
bear for a boy of fifteen; that I have been charged with the want of
patriotism, the want of sense, and the want of heart too; that I went
through agonies of self-conflict and shed secret tears not a fe