Criticus, who writes this piece, has enjoyed some experience in various walks of literature, and has seen himself in print once a week, or oftener, during the last quarter-century.
One of his oldest and best friends was John Wilson, the author of the famous Treatise on Punctuation. Criticus remembers once, in his callow college days, telling this good friend that if he, Criticus, wrote anything for the press, he should not wish a hairbreadth of change made by editor or typesetter or proofreader. Mr. Wilson smiled, and hinted that nobody could be always accurate.
Criticus now blushes whenever he remembers his boastful remark to his old friend, and has learned the meaning and value of the Wilson smile. Today, with the dews of thirty more summers on his pate, Criticus doubts his own ability to write a single paragraph in which some error might not be detected, or some change advantageously made, by critics keener than himself. Whatever he writes he alters over and over, as his printers know to their cost. This very article, after many changes, he has rewritten. Eternal vigilance is the price of accuracy, as it is of liberty.
