The Washington herald., 1910-11-27

The story is told Of a hard-headed
farmer with a taste for reading who bor-
rowed the books OF a summer boarder
until only one of Plato's treatises re-
NAMED unread. The boarder prevailed
upon the farmer 20 read that. too. When
the book was returned the boarder asked
how his host had enjoyed Il.
wal" said the farmer. fair 70 mid
din. The writer seems TO be a sensible
man. and l see that he's got :, good
many of my ideas"
This rural philosopher was by no means
alone in his notion that much that was
old in Solomons puppyhood was original
with him The more We learn OF those
who have passed before the better we
come to realize that novelty is the rareot
Of natural phenomena.
When the obserVant Chaloner lately
cabled his distracted brother, Who's
lOOny MOVE" he scarcely intended TO
compare Lima Cavalieri's husband to an
eminent Archbishop Of Canterbury. Those
who gratefully caught up the telling
phrase did SO with the idea that some
thing new had been added TO the care
free verbiage OF slang, and forgot that
il was old when Charles l was King of
England.
Origin I'm CrOmweIFs Time.
Possibly an older origin might be dis
covered for the expression. but the days
OF Cromwell are far enough behind 10
point what little moral we seek When
Laud, Archbishop Of Canterbury, at the
in Of inf
duce his liturgy a storm OF protest arose
which made the already unpopular cleric
rush to cover.
Archy, court fool to Charles, and the
possessOr of a biting tongue, was none
too fond of Laud, and made this the oc-
casion of a fling at the archbishop
After this rebellion broke out" writes
a historian who chronicles the incident.
and England was aghast at the extent
of the mischief that Laud's liturgy had
done the fool, seeing the archbishop so
by one day. called out 10 him:
My lord, who is the fool now?"
THE archbishop" continues the chron-
icle, AS II 10 leave no possible doubt in
respect 10 the proper answer to the ques-
ton, had poor Archy tried and punished
His sentence was to have his coat pulled
up over his head and 70 be dismissed
from the Kings service
Which shows that IL is safer nowadays
10 give vent 10 waggish impulses via
telegraph than it was to utter them
when Archy formulated the forerunner
Of a modern catch phrase.
'Twenty-three" Has "a Past.
The notorious "twenty-three," which,
by frequent iteration, has almost reached
the point wheresit passes unnoticed. is
another happy illustration of the oldness
of the new. OF all the pedigrees which
have been advanced to account for its
origin perhaps none IS more striking than
the suggestion that il sprung from a
paragraph in the last chapter of Dick
ems Tale of Two Cities
The knitting women are sitting around
the guillotine counting heads as they
drop into the basket. The twenty-second
has fallen, the courageous Sydney Car
ton is about TO be executed
''The murmuring of many voices, the
upturning of many faces. the pressing on
OF many footsteps in the outskirts of
the crowd so that il sWells forward in a
mass, like one great heave OF water all
flashes away. Twenty-three.
But when the street urchin makes a
goat Of some boy victim OF his mis-
chief it sounds very modern. Little does
the urchin know that he has Biblical
authority for is language. All through
out Holy Writ the goat is emblematic
CT sacrifice for another's sins. and in
deed it may be direct from Scripture that
the modern phrase IS taken. A dozen
instances could be cited. but one .rliI
suffice It is taken from Leviticus, xvi:22.
And the goat shall bear upon him all
their iniquities and he shall let go the
goat in the wilderness"
In short, the only way TO arrive at
originality of expression is to try a new
language. saw Esperanto or Volapuk