Arts & Culture | April 15, 2013

A correspondence corner for not-so-famous lost words

Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words

From The May-June 2013 Issue

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.

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

Published in the May-June 2013 print issue under the headline “Chapter & Verse,” in the Montage section.

You might also like

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

Boston Ballet’s Ming Min Hui on Changing Audiences and Timothée Chalamet

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

Illuminated hanging sculptures resembling organic forms, casting warm light in a dim space.

Resculpting an Empire, Through Kitchen Scraps

Artists Enzo Camacho and Ami Lien turn a colonial symbol from Cambodia inside out.

Portrait of a man in a denim shirt beside a blue book cover for "Gretal and the Great War" featuring an illustration of a leg holding an army helmet..

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.

Most popular

A woman jogs on a path beside a boy riding a bicycle, surrounded by trees.

Explore More From Current Issue

A man with a long beard and formal attire stands next to a chalkboard with an equation.

Harvard History

Two tales of University greats—and an encounter with a Tiger

Arts & Culture

Artists Enzo Camacho and Ami Lien turn a colonial symbol from Cambodia inside out.

St. Peter's Basilica at sunset, illuminated by purple and orange sky reflections in the river.

Alumni

For advocacy and benevolence, three late alumni are reportedly in line for the Catholic Church’s highest honor.