Chapter and Verse

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.

Click here for the March-April 2012 issue table of contents

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