23 MAY 1992, Page 27

Sir: 'Very humiliating', Evelyn Waugh once wrote after he had

dropped a danger in a book review, 'particularly as the point of the review was mocking' the author's own howlers and solecisms. In the course of my review of Mr Stannard's life of Waugh, I mockingly quoted the sentence: 'There is no redemption in Connolly's waste land, only ceaseless fishing in the dull canal.' This might have led your readers to the humiliating conclusion (numerous kind friends have suggested) that I had tem- porarily forgotten the line 'While I was fish- ing in the dull canal.' (`The Waste Land', part II). My apologies to Mr Stannard for that piece of mockery.

Geoffrey Wheatcroft

The Coach House, Crowe Hall, Widcombe, Bath