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Article: How Does It Come Out?(wisdom and enjoyment to be found in popular sayings)
- Article from:
- American Scholar
- Article date:
- January 1, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 Phi Beta Kappa Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In 1937, when I was fifteen and in love with Ronald Colman, I saw The Prisoner of Zenda. During an elaborate dueling scene, as gracefully choreographed as an Astaire-Rogers dance number, Colman and his opponent fight their way around a gloomy castle, swerving around the ropes that control the drawbridge, leaping off tables, and moving up stairs without so much as a backward glance. At one point Colman slips through a door and closes it behind him. When his adversary catches up with him and taunts him for his seeming cowardice, Colman replies gaily, "`He who fights and runs away ...'--you know."
Alas, I didn't know. And that was the beginning, for me, of a ...