by Peter Taylor
387.32–33 Crimson . . . Advocate] The Harvard Crimson (founded 1873) is the daily student newspaper of Harvard University, The Harvard Advocate (founded 1866) the college’s student literary quarterly. Both are staffed and edited by Harvard undergraduates.
389.13–22 Today while we are admissibly ungrown, / / For him bringing manliness to light.] Cf. “For the School Boys,” by Peter Taylor, published in Hika 6.4 (February 1940), page 10:
Today while we’re admissibly ungrown,
Now when we are each half boy, half man,
Let us examine ourselves half with half
And exploiting our feminine intimacy
Scramble the halves of all, and each regard
In what manner he has not become a man.
Before the old attachment to ten rooms
Of carpenter’s gothic fails to undo pride,
To release in midnight confidences whims
And yens we want to weed or recognize
At least, let us expose, and count it good,
What is mature. And childish peccadillos
Let us laugh out of our didactic house—
The rident punishment one with reward
For him bringing lack of manliness to light.
Oh, we shall find variety enough
For the interest of all. And we’ll pour forth
All manner of malediction and polemic,
Being boys. And sympathize and profit,
Being men. It is unpredictable
Whether one sanguine person here shall find
So blind an alley as the prodigy’s,
But our number, small enough for chats, is large
Enough for that worst tragedy of the mind.
What we’ve to learn our hundred little quarrels
Each should reveal some part. And every heart
Opened here would find a bitter failing—
Though I should only look from my dormer
At gingerbread about our eaves and say
I have not loved enough this gingerbread.
389.26–28 Now that we’re almost settled . . . / / . . . in th’ ancient tower . . .] The opening lines of “In Memory of Major Robert Gregory” (1918), by W. B. Yeats (1865–1939), from his collection The Wild Swans at Coole (1919).
389.31–36 She had told him—Janet Monet had . . . could not entertain him alone . . .] A parody, through close imitation, of the late style of Henry James. Cf. the opening sentence of The Wings of the Dove (see note 372.38–373.2): “She waited, Kate Croy, for her father to come in, but he kept her unconscionably, and there were moments at which she showed herself, in the glass over the mantel, a face positively pale with the irritation that had brought her to the point of going away without sight of him.”
390.4–5 She knew that he knew . . . / / . . . what a life he had led—] Cf. “Go Ask Father,” a folk poem of the early twentieth century:
“Go ask Father,” she said, when I asked her to wed.
She knew that I knew that her father was dead.
She knew that I knew what a life he had led.
She knew that I knew what she meant when she said:
“Go ask Father!”
403.23 “Temptation”] Torch song (1932) by Nacio Herb Brown, words by Arthur Freed. In the M-G-M musical Going Hollywood (1933), it is crooned by Bing Crosby to the actress Fifi D’Orsay as they flirt and sip tequila in a Tijuana nightclub.
424.30 Bronzino’s “Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time.”] Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time (c. 1540–45) is an allegorical painting by the Florentine Mannerist master Agnolo di Cosimo (1503–1572), also known as Bronzino. The complex, swirling composition depicts a nude Venus sitting on the ground and holding, in her right hand, one of her son Cupid’s arrows, and in the other hand, the golden apple that she was awarded by Paris. Cupid, standing to the right and slightly behind his mother, kisses her on the lips and fondles her right breast. Folly, pictured as a preadolescent boy, rushes up behind them from Venus’s left, ready to surprise them with a shower of pink rose petals. Looming above all is the figure of Time, an old man bearing a dark blue mantle symbolizing age, or death, or the oblivion that will soon cover them all. The oil-on-panel painting, measuring 57 × 46 inches, now hangs in the National Gallery, London.
444.24 Wave] Member of the women’s branch of the U.S. Naval Reserve, 1942–48.
444.31–32 Earl of Chatham . . . Pitt County] William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (1708–1778), also known as William Pitt the Elder, was a British statesman during the reign of George III. As prime minister during the French and Indian War (1754–63), he became intimate with colonial American affairs and grew deeply sympathetic with the revolutionary cause. Later, as a member of the House of Commons, he endeared himself to the American colonists by arguing against the Stamp Act (1766) and other instances of punitive British taxation.
457.32–33 three-point-two draft beer] In March 1933, nine months before the end of Prohibition, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Cullen-Harrison Act, which permitted U.S. manufacture and sale of low-alcohol beer and wine (alcohol content not to exceed 3.2 percent of weight). Throughout the 1930s, and in some states for many decades after, so-called three-point-two beer (or “near beer”) continued to be sold legally in grocery stores, short-order restaurants, and other establishments without liquor licenses.
467.2 “A Message to Garcia.”] Inspirational essay on self-reliance, personal initiative, and civic responsibility (1899), written (and self-published as a best-selling pamphlet) by American writer-entrepreneur Elbert Hubbard (1856–1916).
471.1 Je Suis Perdu] French: “I am lost,” “I am confused,” “I am at a loss.”
471.2 L’ALLEGRO] Pastoral poem (published 1645) by John Milton (1608–1674), addressed to a female personification of Mirth. The title is an Italian word meaning “The cheerful man.”
473.25 chauffage central] French: central heating.
474.37 L’École Père Castor] Exclusive, experimental private nursery school (“Father Beaver’s School,” 1941–61) on the boulevard Saint-Michel, in the Latin Quarter of Paris. It was founded by writer, illustrator, and educator Paul Faucher (1898–1967), creator of the Père Castor series of books for young readers.
477.22 “Je regrette.”] French: “I am sorry.”
480.15 IL PENSEROSO] Pastoral poem (published 1645) by John Milton, written as a companion piece to “L’Allegro” (see note 471.2) and addressed to a female personification of Melancholy. The title is an Italian word meaning “The serious man.”
481.14 Café Tournon] Café on the rue de Tournon, in the St.-Germain-des-Prés quarter of Paris, adjacent to the Luxembourg Gardens. Since the 1920s it has been a favorite haunt of the American expatriate community.
482.40 Panthéon] Neoclassical public building, commissioned by Louis XV and completed in 1789, in the Latin Quarter of Paris. Originally a church dedicated to Saint Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris, it has, since the burial of Voltaire there in 1791, become a secular mausoleum for the grands hommes of France. Interment in the Panthéon is possible only by act of the French parliament. Among the seventy-odd persons currently buried there are the writers Alexandre Dumas père, Victor Hugo, André Malraux, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Émile Zola.
483.18–19 the great David . . . painted his only landscape?] French neoclassical artist Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825) painted his Vue présumée du jardin du Luxembourg (“View of the Luxembourg Gardens”) while imprisoned in the Palais du Luxembourg from August 2 to December 28, 1794. This small canvas, measuring 21½ × 25½ inches, is now in the collection of the Louvre.
490.20 Russian bank] See note 128.36.
513.39 Maud Muller] Ballad (1856), by John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892), whose protagonist, a beautiful farm girl, enjoys a brief but profound encounter with a handsome young judge. The omniscient balladeer tells us that, for the rest of Maud’s and the judge’s lives, they will remember each other with poignant
longing, and concludes that “of all sad words of tongue and pen, / The saddest are these: ‘It might have been!’”
515.9–10 Parthenon . . . capitol building . . . Fort Nashboro.] The Parthenon in Nashville’s Centennial Park is a replica of the Athenian original (see note 18.28). The Greek Revival design of the Tennessee State Capitol (built 1845–59), like that of the Nashville Parthenon, is based on a Doric temple. Fort Nashboro (or Nashborough, built circa 1779) was the two-acre stockade that housed the party of settlers that founded Nashville. In 1930, the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution funded a historical re-creation of the stockade near its original site, on the Cumberland River, in what is now Nashville’s French Lick neighborhood.
518.4 Hermitage Club] See note 209.18.
518.18 Jackson’s Stable] Downtown Nashville restaurant and saloon, also known as the Brass Rail (fl. 1890s–1950s), erected on the site where the young Andrew Jackson had his law practice and horse stable.
519.12 Tennessean] Daily newspaper published in Nashville since 1907.
525.37–38 the plantation houses of Andrew Jackson, John Overton, the Harding family.] The Hermitage mansion (built 1819–21) was the home of Andrew Jackson, who owned the Hermitage plantation from 1803 until his death in 1845. Traveler’s Rest (or Travellers Rest) was the home of Judge John Overton (see note 189.16) from its erection in 1799 until his death in 1833. Bellemeade (or Belle Meade, 1820) was the home of planter and thoroughbred-horse breeder John Harding (1777–1833) and his son and successor in business, William Giles Harding (1808–1886).
526.3 James K. Polk Apartments] Small, exclusive apartment building (1901–c. 1940) at Seventh Avenue and Union Street, Nashville, on the former site of Polk Place, the final residence (1847–49) of U.S. president James K. Polk.
526.3 Vaux Hall] See note 201.20.
534.2 Veiled Prophet’s Ball] Formal dance held every December in St. Louis, Missouri, by the Mystic Order of the Veiled Prophet, a secret society founded in the city in 1878. Each year one of the society’s members is chosen to preside over the festivities as the Veiled Prophet of the Enchanted Realm. Five young women from dozens of invited debutantes are chosen by the Prophet to make up his Court of Honor, and from them he chooses his Queen of Love and Beauty, the belle of the ball.
534.13 Statler Hotel] See note 243.12.
534.25–26 Sportsman’s Park . . . Browns . . . Cardinals] The St. Louis Browns, of baseball’s American League, and the St. Louis Cardinals, of the National League, shared tenancy at Sportsman’s Park, 2911 North Grand Avenue, from 1920 to 1953. (In 1954, the Browns left St. Louis to become the Baltimore Orioles.)
534.32 Dr Pep] The soft drink Dr Pepper, produced locally in Waco, Texas, since 1885, made its national debut as a bottled beverage at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.
534.37 Mary Institute and Country Day] See note 379.12.
537.9–10 “Unc’ Edinburg’s Drowndin’” and “No Haid Pawn,”] Stories by Thomas Nelson Page, collected in his 1887 book In Ole Virginia (see note 16.10–11). “No Haid Pawn,” Page explains, is local black dialect for “No-Head Pond,” a fictional Virginia plantation.
537.11 Post stories by Octavus Roy Cohen.] Cohen (1891–1959), a white writer based in Birmingham, Alabama, contributed “down-home” tales in black dialect to The Saturday Evening Post, Collier’s, and other national weeklies. These tales were collected in Polished Ebony (1919), Highly Colored (1921), and other best-selling volumes.
541.3–4 Marquette and Joliet] From May to September 1763, at the request of James Murray, the British governor of Quebec, two residents of Quebec City—Père Jacques Marquette (1637–1675), a Jesuit missionary and linguist, and Louis Joliet (1646–1700), a fur trader and cartographer—led a seven-man voyage down the Mississippi River from Lake Michigan to within four hundred miles of the Gulf of Mexico. They were the first non-natives to explore, map, and write about the river.
541.6–7 Jean Lafitte in the Old Absinthe House] French pirate Jean Lafitte (1780–c. 1823), who operated in the Gulf of Mexico, was a regular patron of La Maison Absinthe, a saloon (founded 1807) in the French Quarter of New Orleans. According to legend, it was on the second floor of the Old Absinthe House that he and Andrew Jackson, in December 1814, plotted the naval strategy they used against the British at the Battle of New Orleans, the final battle of the War of 1812.
541.25 Colosseum] From 1908 to 1953, the Colosseum (often spelled Coliseum) was an indoor arena in downtown St. Louis and a frequent venue for the Veiled Prophet’s Ball.
542.30 Brownie] See note 215.25.
550.6 Olivetti] Typewriter manufactured by the Olivetti company of Turin, Italy. From the early 1900s through the 1980s, Olivetti was an innovator in the area of lightweight, portable models, both manual and electric.
554.11–12 Dryopteris spinulosa] Common wood fern or buckler fern.
555.13 ageratum] Weed bearing dense corymbs of blue or violet flowers, commonly known as blue weed or floss flower, and often used as summer bedding.
584.1–2 Silas Marner] Novel (1861) by the English writer George Eliot (1819–1880).
586.11 Buster Brown outfit] Formal wear for boys ages three to ten, in a style that flourished, first in England and then in America, from 1885 to about 1920. The outfit consisted of matching suit coat and knee pants, a fancy shirt with a floppy “pussycat” bow, and a wide-brimmed round straw hat. The outfit was originally known as a Fauntleroy outfit, after the protagonist of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s novel Little Lord Fauntleroy (1885) as depicted in magazine illustrations by Reginald Birch. In America, it became more strongly associated with Buster Brown, the hero of a Sunday comic strip (1902–21) by cartoonist R. F. Outcault (1863–1928).
590.7 CCC camp] Camp for workers in the Civilian Conservation Corps (1933–42), a New Deal public-relief program for unmarried men ages seventeen to twenty-eight. The CCC built trails, roads, fences, lodges, and service buildings for state and national parks throughout America.
600.20–21 not one stone will be left upon another.] Cf. Matthew 24:2.
600.31–33 they have forsaken the fountain of living waters . . . broken cisterns that can hold no water] Cf. Jeremiah 2:13.
UNDERGRADUATE STORIES 1936–1939
612.2 Gibson County] County in northwestern Tennessee whose seat, the city of Trenton, was Peter Taylor’s birthplace.
619.6 Port Gibson] Trenton, Tennessee (see note above), incorporated as a town in 1825, was settled, under the name Gibson-Port, in 1821.
622.3–4 “Sister, Take a Walk With Me.”] A.k.a. “Two Sisters” (Child 10), traditional English ballad of 1656. The song exists in many versions, all of which concern the drowning of a fair-haired young woman by her dark, jealous, older sister.
622.37 Dyersburg] See note 58.27.
638.17 Clarendon and Gibbon and Newman] Edward Hyde, Ist Earl of Clarendon (1609–1674), was Lord Chancellor to Charles II and the author of The History of the Rebellion (1702–4), a chronicle of the English Civil War; Edward Gibbon (1737–1794), English historian and member of Parliament, was the author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–88); John Henry Newman (1801–1890) was an English theologian and Roman Catholic cardinal whose historical works include Essays Critical and Historical (1871) and Historical Sketches (1872).
638.32–33 Russian Bank] See note 128.36.
Index of Titles
(Date denotes the year the story was submitted for publication)
Allegiance (1945)
Attendant Evils (1942)
Bad Dreams (1951)
Cookie (1939)
Dark Walk, The (1953)
Fancy Woman, The (1940)
Friend and Protector, A (1958)
Guests (1958)
Heads of Houses (1959)
Je Suis Perdu (1957)
Lady Is Civilized, The (1936)
Life Before, The (1939)
Little Cousins,
The (1958)
Long Fourth, A (1945)
Miss Leonora When Last Seen (1959)
1939 (1954)
Other Times, The (1955)
Party, The (1936)
Porte Cochere (1948)
Promise of Rain (1957)
Rain in the Heart (1943)
School Girl, The (1941)
Scoutmaster, The (1944)
Sky Line (1940)
Spinster’s Tale, A (1938)
Their Losses (1949)
Two Ladies in Retirement (1950)
Uncles (1949)
Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time (1957)
Walled Garden, A (1941)
What You Hear from ’Em? (1950)
Wife of Nashville, A (1949)