_Haoew?_ arrive at distinction?

Sir,--I replied,--in a republic all things are possible. But the man
_with a future_ has almost of necessity sense enough to see that any
odious trick of speech or manners must be got rid of. Doesn't Sidney
Smith say that a public man in England never gets over a false quantity
uttered in early life? _Our_ public men are in little danger of this
fatal misstep, as few of them are in the habit of introducing Latin into
their speeches,--for good and sufficient reasons. But they are bound to
speak decent English,--unless, indeed, they are rough old campaigners,
like General Jackson or General Taylor; in which case, a few scars on
Priscian's head are pardoned to old fellows that have quite as many
on their own, and a constituency of thirty empires is not at all
particular, provided they do not swear in their Presidential Messages.

However, it is not for me to talk. I have made mistakes enough in
conversation and print. "Don't" for doesn't,--base misspelling of Clos
Vougeot, (I wish I saw the label on the bottle a little oftener,)--and
I don't know how many more. I never find them out until they are
stereotyped, and then I think they rarely escape me. I have no doubt
I shall make half a dozen slips before this breakfast is over, and
remember them all before another. How one does tremble with rage at his
own intense momentary stupidity about things he knows perfectly well,
and to think how he lays himself open to the impertinences of the
_captatores verborum_, those useful but humble scavengers of the
language, whose business it is to pick up what might offend or injure,
and remove it, hugging and feeding on it as they go! I don't want to
speak too slightingly of these verbal critics;--how can I, who am so
fond of talking about errors and vulgarisms of speech? Only there is
a difference between those clerical blunders which almost every man
commits, knowing better, and that habitual grossness or meanness of
speech which is unendurable to educated persons, from anybody that wears
silk or broadcloth.

[I write down the above remarks this morning, January 26th, making this
record of the date that nobody may think it was written in wrath, on
account of any particular grievance suffered from the invasion of any
individual _scarabaeus grammaticus_.]

----I wonder if anybody ever finds fault with anything I say at this
table when it is repeated? I hope they do, I am sure. I should be very
certai