from A Practical Introduction to Greek Accentuation, preface to the second edition (Henry W. Chandler)

Among the lesser evils of existence must surely be numbered the necessity of turning once again to an insipid subject long since thrown aside and forgotten.  This I have been obliged to do, and to perform the dismal duty of revision under some considerable disadvantages.  All my original notes and collections were consigned to the flames years ago, in the firm belief that they would never more be wanted; and the loss of such materials it is now impossible to repair.  In circumstances so embarrassing real help is hard to get.  The indefatigable Lobeck is the only man who collected words of like form on a large scale, and his works were pretty freely used in the first edition.  A few more references to them are now added.  Beyond consulting Lobeck and the Paris Thesaurus, I could do little more than read the grammarians and scholiasts over again and glean a few fresh facts.  In this way, however, considerable additions have been made to the book, though, by enlarging the pages and practising the arts of typographical compression, the original number of pages has barely been exceeded.  Some parts have been rewritten, and scarcely a single paragraph reappears without some change and, it is hoped, improvement.  That all defects have been made good it would be unreasonable to expect, for in the first place, he who deals with Greek accentuation independently, as I have done, has to contend with hosts of petty details which distract his attention, and not unfrequently exhaust his patience.  Every alteration has to be made with the greatest circumspection, and it would be wonderful indeed, where the chances of error are so great, if I have not sometimes gone astray.  In the next place, it is proverbially difficult to detect one's own mistakes, and here let it be remembered that, though I invited criticism and correction, I have received no assistance of any sort or kind.  Let those who noticed faults in the first edition know that they alone are answerable if those faults are repeated in the second.  They had but to speak, and whatever was false or misleading would have been corrected.  All censure now comes too late to be of any use to me.

[...]

In bidding a last farewell to a subject in which I never took more than a languid interest, I may be permitted to say that in England, at all events, every man will accent his Greek properly who wishes to stand well with the world.  He whose accents are irreproachable may indeed be no better than a heathen, but concerning that man who misplaces them, or, worse still, altogether omits them, damaging inferences will certainly be drawn, and in most instances with justice.