Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Mr. Hugh Fitzgerald, in New English Review


Do you not realize that the Sunni Arabs simply cannot permit the “Raphidite dogs” or Shi’a of Iraq to control Mesopotamia (as we redolently like to call it — see what Jacques Barzun noted of that word, as pleasing as the word “ratiocination”)
More on Why We Should Welcome Iraq's Civil War


Cécile, ouvrage de mademoiselle Guichard. Il a publié ce dernier comme simple éditeur, quoiqu'il l'ait retouché”. . . .

Retouched. Just a little “retouched.” By someone who calls himself “un simple editeur.” Avec, no doubt, un coeur simple. Just doing a little retouching. For the final result of such editorial presumption, see what young badly-educated editors do nowadays when they start line-editing a grown-up’s prose, a matter dealt with by Jacques Barzun in A Word or Two Before You Go.
A Little Retouched