An anonymous correspondent (by the hand-writing presumably a clergyman)
tells me that in quoting from the Latin grammar I should at any rate have
done so correctly, and that I should have written "agricolas" instead of
"agricolae". He added something about any boy in the fourth form, &c.,
&c., which I shall not quote, but which made me very uncomfortable. It
may be said that I must have misquoted from design, from ignorance, or by
a slip of the pen; but surely in these days it will be recognised as
harsh to assign limits to the all-embracing boundlessness of truth, and
it will be more reasonably assumed that each of the three possible causes
of misquotation must have had its share in the apparent blunder. The art
of writing things that shall sound right and yet be wrong has made so
many reputations, and affords comfort to such a large number of readers,
that I could not venture to neglect it; the Latin grammar, however, is a
subject on which some of the younger members of the community feel
strongly, so I have now written "agricolas". I have also parted with the
word "infortuniam" (though not without regret), but have not dared to
meddle with other similar inaccuracies.
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