is? It was his original assertion that Dr. Newman
was a professed liar, and a patron of lies; he spoke somewhat at
random, granted; but now he has got up his references and he is
proving, not perhaps the very thing which he said at first, but
something very like it, and to say the least quite as bad. He is now
only aiming to justify morally his original assertion; why is he not
at liberty to do so?"

_Why_ should he _not_ now insinuate that I am a liar and a knave! he
had of course a perfect right to make such a charge, if he chose; he
might have said, "I was virtually right, and here is the proof of
it," but this he has not done, but on the contrary has professed that
he no longer draws from my works, as he did before, the inference of
my dishonesty. He says distinctly, p. 26, "When I read these outrages
upon common sense, what wonder if I said to myself, 'This man cannot
believe what he is saying?' _I believe I was wrong_." And in p. 31,
"I said, This man has no real care for truth. Truth for its own sake
is no virtue in his eyes, and he teaches that it need not be. _I do
not say that now_." And in p. 41, "I do not call this conscious
dishonesty; the man who wrote that sermon _was already past the
possibility_ of such a sin."

_Why_ should he _not_! because it is on the ground of my not being a
knave that he calls me a fool; adding to the words just quoted, "[My
readers] have fallen perhaps into the prevailing superstition that
cleverness is synonymous with wisdom. They cannot believe that (as is
too certain) great literary and even barristerial ability may
co-exist with almost boundless silliness."

_Why_ should he _not_! because he has taken credit to himself for
that high feeling of honour which refuses to withdraw a concession
which once has been made; though (wonderful to say!), at the very
time that he is recording this magnanimous resolution, he lets it out
of the bag that his relinquishment of it is only a profession and a
pretence; for he says, p. 8: "I have accepted Dr. Newman's denial
that [the Sermon] means what I thought it did; and _heaven forbid_"
(oh!) "that I should withdraw my word once given, _at whatever
disadvantage to myself_." Disadvantage! but nothing can be
advantageous to him which is _untrue_; therefore in proclaiming that
the concession of my honesty is a disadvantage to him, he thereby
implies unequivocally that there is some probability still, that I am
_dis_honest. He goes on, "I am