An Apology
Atlas—There are those, they tell me, who have the approval of the people—and live! For them the succès d’estime; for me, O Atlas, the succès d’exécration—the only tribute possible from the Mob to the Master! The World, Feb. 28, 1883. This I have now nobly achieved. Glissons! In the hour of my triumph let me not neglect my ambulance.
Mr. Frederick Wedmore—a critic—one of the wounded—complains that by dexterously substituting “understand” for “understate,” I have dealt unfairly by him, and wrongly rendered his writing. Let me hasten to acknowledge the error, and apologise. My carelessness is culpable, and the misprint without excuse; for naturally I have all along known, and the typographer should have been duly warned, that with Mr. Wedmore, as with his brethren, it is always a matter of understating, and not at all one of understanding.
Quant aux autres—well, with the exception of “’Arry,” who really is dead, they will recover. Scalped and disfigured, they are not mortally hurt; and—would you believe it?—possessed with an infinite capacity for continuing, they have already returned, nothing doubting, to their limited literature, of which I have exhausted the stock.—Yours, en passant,
Chelsea.