e greaser named ---- has been allowed to insult old F.M.H. in a
series of letters that make me ashamed of my species. Hueffer has
many faults no doubt but firstly he's poor, secondly he's notoriously
unhappy and in a most miserable position, thirdly he's a better
writer than any of your little crowd and fourthly, instead of
pleading his age and his fat and taking refuge from service in a
greasy obesity as your Brother has done, he is serving his country.
His book is a great book and ---- just lies about it--I guess he's a
dirty minded priest or some such unclean thing--when he says it is
the story of a stallion and so forth. The whole outbreak is so
envious, so base, so cat-in-the-gutter-spitting-at-the-passer-by,
that I will never let the _New Witness_ into the house again.

Regretfully yours,

H. G. WELLS.

Gilbert replied:

11 Warwick Gardens, Kensington W.

MY DEAR WELLS,

As you will see by the above address I have been away from home;
and must apologise for delay; I am returning almost at once, however.
Most certainly you have always been a good friend to me, and I have
always tried to express my pride in the fact. I know enough of your
good qualities in other ways to put down everything in your last
letter to an emotion of loyalty to another friend. Any quarrel
between us will not come from me; and I confess I am puzzled as to
why it should come from you, merely because somebody else who is not
I dislikes a book by somebody else who is not you, and says so in an
article for which neither of us is even remotely responsible. I very
often disagree with the criticisms of ----; I do not know anything
about the book or the circumstances of Hueffer. I cannot help being
entertained by your vision of ----, who is not a priest, but a poor
journalist, and I believe a Free-Thinker. But whoever he may be (and
I hardly think the problem worth a row between you and me) he has a
right to justice: and you must surely see that even if it were my
paper, I could not either tell a man to find a book good when he
found it bad, or sack him for a point of taste which has nothing in
the world to do with the principles of the paper. For the rest,
Haynes represents the _New Witness_ much more than a reviewer does,
being both on the board and the staff; and he has put your view in
the paper--I cannot help thinking with a mor