If you had read my article on Velasquez, I cannot but say that you have made an unfair use of it, in quoting a detached sentence, which, read with the context, bears exactly the opposite sense from that you have quoted it as bearing.
This is a bad "throw-off" in the critical line; whether it affect "le premier littérateur venu" or yours always,
TOM TAYLOR.
P.S.—As your attack on my article is public, I reserve to myself the right of giving equal publicity to this letter.
Lavender Sweep,
Jan, 6, 1879.
The Position
Dead for a ducat, dead! my dear Tom: and the rattle has reached me by post.
"Sans rancune," The World, Jan. 15, 1879. say you? Bah! you scream unkind threats and die badly.
Why squabble over your little article? You did print what I quote, you know, Tom; and it is surely unimportant what more you may have written of the Master. That you should have written anything at all is your crime.
No; shrive your naughty soul, and give up Velasquez, and pass your last days properly in the Home Office.