Subject: (urth) A funny thing happened on the way to the motto

From: William H. Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1999 23:47:42 +0000

>William Ansley writes:
><<This invites you to analyze the text in a way that
>more ordinary books don't, but it tends to lead to the conclusion that
>every mystery Wolfe sets has a solution.>>
>
>I refer you to the motto/colophon of the Urth Archive web site. It is Wolfe
>speaking through the mouth of Agia...
>
>     -- Dave Lebling
>     (aka vizcacha)

"Do you think there are answers to everything here? Is that true in the
place you come from?"

Dave,

The lines above are what you are referring to as the "motto/colophon of the
Urth Archive web site." (I include them for the sake of anyone who doesn't
want to take the trouble of browsing to the Urth web site.) A funny thing
about that motto... I suggested it. On May 2, 1998, I wrote:

>I am rereading TBotNS and I have come across a passage that I think makes a
>good epigraph for this discussion group. It is in Vol. 1, Ch. 20, (p. 125
>of the Orb edition _Shadow & Claw_ at the top of the page). Agia is
>replying to Serverian's questions about the Botanic Gardens and says:
>
>"I don't know. Do you think there are answers to everything here? Is that
>true in the place you come from?"

Then, in a message dated the same day, you wrote:

>* William Ansley's epigraph
>
>Wonderful epigraph!  I hereby petition Ranjit to add it to the Archive
>Web Pages, and the digest. As they say in alt.folklore.urban, "Motto!"

And, shortly thereafter, if I recall correctly, Ranjit made it so.

Kinda ironic, huh?

William Ansley

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/