LETTER TO THE EDITOR.
"HUMAN DOCUMENTS."
[To TIM EDITOR OP TRY SPECTATOR."' SIR,—You have honoured me with so powerful a destructive criticism of my " Human Documents," in the Spectator of March 28th, that I am fain to seek a little refuge in the plea of a certain misrepresentation. You quote a phrase from my book respecting an individual, " who with perfervid utterance and coruscating eye would persuade us to be all equal in talent, in education, and in privilege,"—and this phrase you deal with as though I had applied it to Tom Mann. Conse- quently you have little difficulty in scoring at my expense :— " Surely a man who would attempt 'to persuade us to be all equal in talent, in education, and in privilege,' can hardly be the superior in valid intellectual energy' of any doctrinaires." My response is a simple one. The words first quoted did not apply to Mann at all ; they were rather the description of a type of Socialist with whom I compared Mann,—to that honest citizen's advantage. I quite believe that this little misrepresentation was unintentional. I have rejoiced in your criticism because with my " arrogance " and " affectation " it has given me a better idea of the security of my Documents. —I am, Sir, &c.,
[We certainly had entirely misunderstood Mr. Lynch to apply those words to Tom Mann, and of course withdraw at once the few sentences which were intended as a criticism on the remark.—En. Spectator.]
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