we grope as if we had no
eyes; we stumble at noonday as in the night."

"We roar all like bears."

[Illustration]

_Taking the Bait_

[Sidenote: _The Academy_, Feb. 24, 1883.]

By the simple process of applying snippets of published sentences to
works of art to which the original comments were never meant to have
reference, and sometimes, too, by lively misquotation--as when a
writer who "did not wish to understate" Mr. Whistler's merit is made
to say he "did not wish to understand" it, Mr. Whistler has counted on
good-humouredly confounding criticism. He has entertained but not
persuaded; and if his literary efforts with the scissors and the
paste-pot might be taken with any seriousness we should have to rebuke
him for his feat. But we are far from doing so. He desired, it seems,
to say that he and Velasquez were both above criticism. An artist in
literature would have said it in fewer words; but indulgence may
fairly be granted to the less assured methods of an amateur in
authorship.

F. WEDMORE.

_An Apology_

[Sidenote: _The World_, Feb. 28, 1883.]

Atlas--There are those, they tell me, who have the approval of the
people--and live! For them the _succes d'estime_; for me, O Atlas, the
_succes d'execration_--the only tribute possible from the Mob to the
Master! 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.

[Illustration]

_"Jeux Innocents" in Tite Street_

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