第3巻第1章 英国への帰国
|
v.3,chap.1: Return to England None the less, at the time I gave this advice, I gave it so casually without any real hope that it would be followed, that I soon forgot I had given it. I had mentioned it in a private letter and again in a speech that I did not know was to be the subject of dissection by the press. When, later, the recipient of the letter asked me for permission to publish it, I said, as I usually do, without consideration of the contents, that if he wished he might publish it. He did so. And to my surprise I learned of my earlier suggestion. I had, also, entirely forgotten that it occurred in the above-mentioned speech. Unfortunately, in the meantime, before this incontrovertible evidence was set before me, I had hotly denied that I had ever made such a suggestion. It was a pity. It is shameful to deny one's own words. One can only defend or retract them. In this case I could, and did, defend them, and should have done so earlier but from a fault of my memory upon which from many years' experience I had come to rely too unquestioningly. |