As I was in Paris all day Thursday, here is what a good friend of my dad's reported from Paris on Thanksgiving in 1952

[DFW]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/23/AR2005112302056.html

Keeping with the four paragraphs rule, I'll paste a bit of it. Knowledge of French helps, but Art had such an amazing fry sense of humor that maybe the idea will seep through even for those few of us who are not bilingual in French..................

It concerns a brave capitaine named Miles Standish (known in France as Kilomètres Deboutish) and a young, shy lieutenant named Jean Alden. Both of them were in love with a flower of Plymouth called Priscilla Mullens (no translation). The vieux capitaine said to the jeune lieutenant :

"Go to the damsel Priscilla ( allez très vite chez Priscilla), the loveliest maiden of Plymouth ( la plus jolie demoiselle de Plymouth). Say that a blunt old captain, a man not of words but of action ( un vieux Fanfan la Tulipe ), offers his hand and his heart, the hand and heart of a soldier. Not in these words, you know, but this, in short, is my meaning.

"I am a maker of war ( je suis un fabricant de la guerre ) and not a maker of phrases. You, bred as a scholar ( vous, qui êtes pain comme un étudiant ), can say it in elegant language, such as you read in your books of the pleadings and wooings of lovers, such as you think best adapted to win the heart of the maiden."

Although Jean was fit to be tied ( convenable à être emballé ), friendship prevailed over love and he went to his duty. But instead of using elegant language, he blurted out his mission. Priscilla was muted with amazement and sorrow ( rendue muette par l'étonnement et la tristesse ).

[elleng]

1. C'est si BON!!!!

[Hekate]

2. Fond LOL. Art Buchwald used to dust off that story or variations every Thanksgiving & it spread around the country...

Much fun. Thank you, and happy holidays, DFW.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. "who fled from l'Angleterre before the McCarran Act" ... I wonder how many get that reference ?

Walt Kelly named one of his immigration-paranoid characters Mole MacAroney in Senator McCarran's honor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Act_of_1952 (The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (Pub. L. 82–414, 66 Stat. 163, enacted June 27, 1952), also known as the McCarran–Walter Act, codified under Title 8 of the United States Code (8 U.S.C. ch. 12), governs immigration to and citizenship in the United States. )