# minutiae and Robert&Marie *The Urth list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 29 Jul 2003* > Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright > in each message remains with the person who wrote it. > Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original > archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than > retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact. --- ### James Wynn *29 Jul 2003, 14:47* Josh Geller says: I put the whole [Delany/Baldanders theory] forward as much as a wry comment on the wrangling over minutiae which, in my opinion, badly infests this list at the possible expense of serious discussion as for any other reason. Crush says: What but minutiae would one expect from a list devoted to the works of a single, relatively [unjustly] obscure writer? Secondly, since I'd rather avoid personally directed comments right now, I'll only say that people with glass posts should not throw stones. ;-) Finally, although I intended to offer this theory only after I had read their son's biography of their lives, I'd like to move the subject away from religion, politics, and the Culture War and back to minutiae. That is, I am pretty sure now who were Robert and Marie whom Severian met in the Garden. They are Robert and Mary Moffat. A review of the archives reveals that Alga suggested this years ago in a burst of free-associative imagination that would be a credit even to me. Robert and Marie were the parents-in-law of David Livingston. Robert was a gardener before he became a missionary to South Africa. A Scotsman, his pronunciation of "Mary" was probably indiscrimate from "Marie". He went to Africa with the declared desire to plant a Garden for God there. During a serious drought, the local chieftan hired a "rain-maker", who after repeated unsuccess, declared that the white missionaries were driving the rain away. The rain-maker rallied the local people in a mob against them. How it turned out was that Robert faced the mob, declared his reason for being there, and the mob broke up. Since Moffat died in the 1880s, I would say the plane Severian sees is from another time -- that he is moving further and further back in time as he walks through the Garden. As I say, I expect to draw this connection better after reading their biography (and getting my copy of tSotT back). -- Crush ---