Leslie Gillis requests title and author for a book that ends, “I don’t know. I’m just a city boy myself”—in response to a question about whether flowers popping up through the snow are crocuses.
“iron filings” (March-April). Alison Harris recalled this fable about steel filings and a magnet from Extraordinary Tales by Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares (1971, edited and translated by Anthony Kerrigan; page 96). Their source, Hesketh Pearson’s The Life of Oscar Wilde (1946; page 212), credits Richard Le Gallienne’s The Romantic ’90s (1926; pages 254ff).
“thoughts of great men” (March-April). Mary Ann Brewin found no citation for this alleged Mark Twain remark, but recommended www.twainquotes.com for many other sourced comments.
