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

America’s Past, Opera's Future: 11 New Books from Harvard Authors

These newly released novels, histories, and memoirs grapple with identity in all its forms.

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

Keri Russell Calls ‘The Diplomat’ a Love Letter to Public Servants

A Harvard Kennedy School event looks behind the scenes of the Netflix drama. 

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 Philosophy at Harvard Saved Itself

As humanities shrink across higher education, one department is flourishing. Is its success a fluke, or a roadmap?

Explore More From Current Issue

A smiling man in a brown plaid suit stands outdoors with greenery in the background.

The professor and former Harvard College dean is the next president of Harvard Magazine’s Board of Directors

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.

Bronze statue of a seated figure holding a book, with a campus setting in the background.

As humanities shrink across higher education, one department is flourishing. Is its success a fluke, or a roadmap?