FIRST CHECK YOUR FACTS
SIR,—Probably because he has become accustomed to addressing the groundlings from his journalistic eminence, Mr. Henry Fairlie, in an excursion into literary criticism, seems to neglect the elementary precaution of checking his facts. He bases an attack on Mr. Dacre Balsdon's Oxford Life on the state- ment: 'The trouble with dons like Mr. Balsdon, who have spent all their years since they were eighteen unbrokenly at Oxford, is that they have never grown up.'
Having spent a number of rather troubled years with Mr. Balsdon a long way away from Oxford, ad- mittedly at a time when Mr. Fairlie was probably still damp behind the cars, I suggest that the next time he takes on his elders and betters in terms like this he had better resist the temptation to be yet another angry young critic.—Yours faithfully,
A. S. EBBW
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