Thursday, December 15, 2011

"only an editorial Casaubon would wish to pursue the matter further."

"There are three possible candidates William Lowth (1660-1732), Simon Lowth (1630-1720), and Robert Lowth (1710-87); all prolific writers on theological subjects.  The reader has a free choice; Professor Haight favours the first while I incline to the last, since he engaged in controversy with Bishop Warburton, mentioned elsewhere in connection with Casaubon.  But only an editorial Casaubon would wish to pursue the matter further."

     W. J. Harvey, on the Lowth alluded to in chap. 37 of Middlemarch, by George Eliot.  George Eliot, Middlemarch, ed. W. J. Harvey (Harmondsworth:  Penguin Books, 1965), 905 (chap. 37, note 4, from p. 409).

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Famous last words

     "After Custer gave the battalion orders, Half Yellow Face spoke through Boyer.  'Do not divide your men,' he said.  'There are too many of the enemy for us, even if we stay together.  If you must fight, keep us all together.'
     "Custer was in no mood to hear dire predictions.  'You do the scouting, and I will attend to the fighting,' he said.
     "The Crow began to strip off his clothes and paint his face.  Custer asked what he was doing.
     "'Because you and I are going home today, and by a trail that is strange to us both,' said Half Yellow Face."

     James Donovan, A terrible glory: Custer and the Little Bighornthe last great battle of the American West (New York:  Little, Brown and Company, 2008), 212.  Half Yellow Face was among the very few who came to grips with the sheer size of the Indian encampment in time.