Liberty and Peace. I was never much in
sympathy with my age.

With my youthful style I should not venture to tamper even were I
conscious of any important change in my theory of composition or power
of expression. And I am not. I write more fluently nowadays and
therefore, probably, worse. It cannot be helped. It charms me to notice
as I read these essays with what care and conscience they are done.
_Magna cum cura atque diligentia scripsit_--they are not far from Latin
Grammar days. Precisely on account of these qualities they have suffered
much from editorial amendment, and on their account I have been
conservative in a matter where another policy would, I dare say, have
been more to the taste of some connoisseurs. The matter in question is
that of the grand editorial "We." That, as you may suppose, was the
person in which Pallas habitually addressed her attentive suppliants;
that was the person in which these articles were written; and experiment
has shown that to substitute "I," "my," and "mine" for "we," "our," and
"ours," destroys invariably the texture of the prose. Whether this early
prose of mine was good is not for me to decide; but that it was closely
knit is indisputable, and a sensitive critic who cared to tease himself
with trifles could discover, I fancy, from stylistic evidence, just
which passages have been interpolated.

The articles borrowed from the _Burlington Magazine_, the _Nation_, the
_New Statesman_, the _International Journal of Ethics_, and the
_Cambridge Magazine_--to the editors of which I herewith tender
customary thanks for customary favours--all having appeared over my
signature were, of course, all written in the first person singular. Any
one who did me the honour of reading my book, "Art," so attentively as
now to notice that to its making went certain quarryings from these
articles, will have enjoyed it enough, I hope, not to resent being
occasionally reminded of it.

And here I might end a tedious letter: but first, if you will bear with
me, I should like to say a word on a subject in which both you and I are
interested. I have shown so much humility in contrasting these reviews
with those of Mr. Bennett that I will permit myself one comment, by no
means in disparagement of "Books and Persons," but in the hope that he,
or indeed any one who concerns himself with literary criticism, may
profit by it. In one respect I do fancy myself a better critic than Mr.
Bennett; for though, d