Chapter & Verse

Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words

Taylor Chiu seeks a citation for words attributed to Jane Austen: “Teach us that we may feel the importance of every hour, every minute, as it passes.”

Eliot Kieval, intrigued by the famous assertion “I disapprove of [sometimes, disagree with] what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,” frequently attributed to Voltaire, is eager to learn of any similar declarations, in any language, that predate the 1906 publication of The Friends of Voltaire, by “Stephen G. Tallentyre” (the pen name of English writer Evelyn Beatrice Hall). The quotation is reported to be Hall’s paraphrase of Voltaire’s attitude; Fred R. Shapiro, editor of The Yale Book of Quotations, writes in that volume that the quotation “does not appear…in Voltaire’s writings.”

“Together” (July-August). Carmen Munnelly recognized Ludwig Lewisohn’s poem “Together,” which begins, “You and I by this lamp with these/few books shut out the world…” and ends, “And this is marriage, this is love.” Jo Salas cited Grace Paley’s “Hand-Me-Downs,” from Begin Again: Collected Poems, for its similar theme.

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

Harvard College Admits Class of 2028

A smaller undergraduate applicant cohort—the first since Supreme Court ended affirmative action 

Studying ChatGPT Like a Psychologist

Cognitive science helps penetrate the AI “black box”

Reparations as Public Health

A Harvard forum on the racial health gap

Most popular

Harvard College Admits Class of 2028

A smaller undergraduate applicant cohort—the first since Supreme Court ended affirmative action 

Diagnosis by Fiction

The “Healing Quartet,” by “Samuel Shem,” probes medicine—and life.

AWOL from Academics

Behind students' increasing pull toward extracurriculars

More to explore

Darker Days

The current disquiets compared to Harvard’s Vietnam-era traumas

Making Space

The natural history of Junko Yamamoto’s art and architecture

Spellbound on Stage

Actor and young adult novelist Aislinn Brophy