Chapter & Verse

A correspondence corner for not-so-famous lost words

Pat Donovan hopes that someone can provide her with the original source of the phrase “…and she wiped the ambassador’s nose”; the reference is to an infant envisioned by his doting mother as a distinguished diplomat one day.

 

Dorothy Richardson requests an identification of the poetic fragment with which William Dunlap closes his History of the American Theatre (1832): “Time rushes o’er us; thick as evening clouds/ Ages roll back; what calls them from their shrouds?/ What in full vision brings their good and great,—/ The men whose virtues make the nation’s fate;/The far, forgotten stars of human kind?/ The STAGE —the MIGHTY TELESCOPE OF MIND!”

 

Send inquiries and answers to “Chapter and Verse,” Harvard Magazine, 7 Ware Street, Cambridge 02138, or via e-mail to chapterandverse@harvardmag.com.

You might also like

The Year a Beat Poet Squatted at Harvard

In 1954, Gregory Corso moved into Eliot House. How he stayed there is a literary legend.

How Adam Ehrlich Sachs Writes Absurd and Beautiful Fiction

The Gretel and the Great War author on how the Lampoon derailed his science career—and set him on a literary path.

Tara Menon’s Debut Novel Combines Friendship, Grief, and Climate Disaster

The popular Harvard English professor published Under Water this spring.

Most popular

The Loneliness Pandemic

As the country isolates, are we all alone?

As Union Protests Continue, Stephen Colbert and Yo-Yo Ma Event at Harvard Cut Short

A conversation between the comedian and the celebrated cellist was interrupted by a fire alarm in Sanders Theatre.

Naval architect William Francis Gibbs, designer of the SS United States

Brief life of America’s greatest naval architect: 1886-1967

Explore More From Current Issue

Black and white portrait of a woman with medium-length hair, smiling softly.

The outgoing executive director and Harvard Business School graduate went from dancing The Nutcracker to growing a ballet company.

Collage of three photos of an athlete in a triathlon: one swimming, one cycling, one running, in sports attire.

The Harvard triathlete and coach says she helps normal people to “do extraordinary things.”

Two fans celebrate in front of a TV showing a football game.

A new Harvard Kennedy School project aims to harness the power of feral fandom.