Let me confess frankly that my books contain a number of errors, some unbalanced emphasis, and premature therefore inaccurate conclusions. For they were written at a time when I was very much on the move, both mentally and bodily. Virgil was so ashamed of its imperfections that he hoped his Aeneid would be burned. I, too, have suffered and continue to suffer still the same excruciating remorse as he. To the certain horror of my publishers (who own the copyrights), but to the certain satisfaction of my conscience, let me say that I would like them all suddenly to, in Shakespeare's phrase, "dissolve and leave not a wrack behind." But alas! there is nothing to be done in the matter now, for I can find neither the time nor energy nor interest to go over the same old ground again and rewrite them as they should have been written. The task of translating the subtlest truths and most metaphysical tenets accessible to mankind into understandable contemporary language is such a tremendous one that only a sage could have carried it out without fault and without error. Consequently, I warned readers in the prefatory chapter of The Wisdom of the Overself to expect mistakes when I warned them that I was only "a blundering student." The best that can be done is to resolve on the one hand that all future productions of my pen shall be as faultless in matter, as free from these particular defects, as they can be made, and on the other, to publish a little journal wherein readers of those older books can have their misconceptions continually pointed out and corrected.
-- Notebooks Category 12: Reflections > Chapter 5 : The Literary Work > # 167
