An Undiscerning Critic

April 6, 2005

To An Undiscerning Critic

By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930)

Sure, there are times when one cries with acidity,
`Where are the limits of human stupidity?'
Here is a critic who says as a platitude,
That I am guilty because 'in gratitude,
Sherlock Holmes, the sleuth hound, with motives ulterior,
Sneers at Poe's Dupin as very "inferior".'

Have you not learned, my esteemed commentator,
That the created is not the creator?
As the creator I've praised to satiety
Poe's Monsieur Dupin, his skill and variety,
And have admitted that in my detective work,
I owe to my model a deal of selective work.

But is it not on the verge of inanity
To put down to me my creation's crude vanity?
He, the created, the puppet of fiction,
Would not brook rivals nor stand contradiction,
He, the created, would scoff and would sneer,
Where I, the Creator, would bow and revere.

So please grip this fact with your cerebral tentacle,
The doll and its maker are never identical.