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

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

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

The popular Harvard English professor published Under Water this spring.

Most popular

“The Grand Wake for Harvard Indifference”

At noon on November 16, 1938, some 500 Harvard and Radcliffe students jammed Emerson Hall to express their outrage at Kristallnacht, as the...

In 2004, a frenzy spread across Harvard Yard in days. Four billion users later, we are only just catching up.

Harvard Weathers a Year of Turmoil

The federal government has launched unprecedented actions against the University. Here’s a guide.

Explore More From Current Issue

Three actors perform on stage, with one actor interacting closely with another, set against abstract backgrounds.

The play Spare Parts is a contemporary fable about the quest to live forever.

Three hands hold smartphones displaying social media profiles with likes and hearts.

Tell us about how social media impacts your daily life.

A football player in a white jersey evades a defender in a green uniform on the field.

Despite personnel losses, Crimson captain Xaviah Bascon is upbeat about the 2026 season.