The Humour of Homer and Other Essays by Samuel Butler
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page 38 of 297 (12%)
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Cavaliere Angelo Rizzetti was published at Novara in 1894.
"Quis Desiderio . . .?" the second essay in this volume, was developed in 1888 from something in a letter from Miss Savage nearly ten years earlier. On the 15th of December, 1878, in acknowledging this letter, Butler wrote: I am sure that any tree or flower nursed by Miss Cobbe would be the _very_ first to fade away and that her gazelles would die long before they ever came to know her _well_. The sight of the brass buttons on her pea-jacket would settle them out of hand. There was an enclosure in Miss Savage's letter, but it is unfortunately lost; I suppose it must have been a newspaper cutting with an allusion to Moore's poem and perhaps a portrait of Miss Frances Power Cobbe--pea-jacket, brass buttons, and all. On the 10th November, 1879, Miss Savage, having been ill, wrote to Butler: I have been dipping into the books of Moses, being sometimes at a loss for something to read while shut up in my apartment. You know that I have never read the Bible much, consequently there is generally something of a novelty that I hit on. As you do know your Bible well, perhaps you can tell me what became of Aaron. The account given of his end in Numbers XX is extremely ambiguous and unsatisfactory. Evidently he did not come by his death fairly, but whether he was murdered secretly for the furtherance of some private ends, or publicly in a State sacrifice, I can't make out. I myself rather incline to the former opinion, but I |
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