A correspondence corner for not-so-famous lost words

A correspondence corner for not-so-famous lost words

Donald Kinnear asks which Aldous Huxley novel “contains a dissertation on death and dying with the first line, ‘Death is the beginning, not the end.’ It was written in French and then translated into English.”

 

More queries from the archives:

A hymn containing the phrase “Jesus seeking the humble heart.”

A poem containing the lines: “In the corner of the field/A boy flicks a spotted beetle from her wrist.”

A poem that refers to geese and also contains the line, “The distant hills draw nigh.”

A poem that contains the sentence, “The woodlands lead the feet to green adventure.”

The titles of a Broadway show and the song from that show with a chorus declaring, “Maybe I’ll jump overboard but I’m afraid I’ll drown;/Water isn’t cool enough to cool this baby down.”

 

“stalk” (January-February). Responding to a request for pre-1968 usage of “stalk” in the “modern sense of obsessive, unwanted attention,” a reader suggested a line from Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida: “…I stalk about her door,/like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks/ staying for waftage” (act III, scene ii).

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 Art Museums restores a rare glimpse of an American master.

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

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

Most popular

Harvard art historian Jennifer Roberts teaches the value of immersive attention

Teaching students the value of deceleration and immersive attention

Remembering Towering Physicist Julian Schwinger (1918-1994)

At Jefferson Laboratory, Nobel Prize winners gather to remember one of their own.

Houghton Library Displays Revolution-era News and Propaganda

A new exhibit reveals how early Americans learned about the war.

Explore More From Current Issue

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

Tell us about how social media impacts your daily life.

Three young women posed side by side against red background.

The 2026-2027 Ledecky and Summer Undergraduate Fellows

A busy classroom filled with students working at computers, colorful decor, and a bright atmosphere.

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