The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #8734 Message #4126635
Posted By: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
18-Nov-21 - 01:58 PM
Thread Name: ADD: As Long as the Grass Shall Grow (P. La Farge)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: As Long as the Grass Shall Grow (La Farge
Seems the sudden influx of tomahawk chops; growing grass and flowing waters in my newsfeed and homework checking isn't just the Atlanta Braves winning baseball's World Series. November is also the U.S. government's official Native American Indian Heritage Month and it does seem they're going particularly hard at it this year.
Soooo, to paint my previous with a somewhat finer brush for the occasion(s) -
“Satanstoe has the place been called, therefore, from time immemorial; as time is immemorial in a country in which civilized time commenced not a century and a half ago: and Satanstoe it is called to-day. I confess I am not fond of unnecessary changes, and I sincerely hope this neck of land will continue to go by its old appellation, as long as the House of Hanover shall sit on the throne of these realms; or as long as water shall run and grass grow. [Satanstoe, Cooper, 1848]
Note: The setting is pre-revolutionary colonial America. When Cooper wrote these words in 1848, New York was no longer a colony in the realm of the House of Hanover. The author is being facetious, sarcastic, ironic, whatevs. Ergo, the phrase must already be in popular usage for the 1848 reader to get the joke, as it were.