Posted by Ed Kiser on July 29, 2008 at 20:52:01 user Kisered.
"Believe me, there is nothing - absolutely nothing -
half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats..."
The above quotation sounds so very "Ransomish" that surely he must have put those words somewhere in those twelve beloved books. So, to find where he had said that, I looked up "messing" and found several usages, but none were the above quotation.
In BS CH 32, Pete had been messing about with the green paint.
In ML CH 17, they were messing about with that dragon.
In PP CH 17 and 20, Squashy Hat had been messing about with white paint.
In PP CH 9, Squashy Hat was messing about with a map.
In WH CH 25, they were afraid that some native had been messing about the houseboat.
In WH CH 6, they were glad they were not at achool messing about with the the Magna Carta.
But not once were they any where messing about with a boat.
Yet it was such a familiar phrase. And indeed it is, as it came directly from "Wind in the Willows" as Ratty describes his joy of his boat on the River.
But like Ratty, our Ransome friends did enjoy messing about with boats, but just never expressed it in so many words.
This memory of mine misplacing phrases like that reminds me of a similar confusion with some quotes, as I try to remember if some phrase came from Shakespeare, or was that from Proverbs in the Old Testament. Hard to remember which is the source sometimes.
But then, when it comes to a phrase like...
"Softly, at first, as if it hardly meant it, the snow began to fall."
(WH CH5, last line)
Definitely not Wind in the Willows, as only Ransome could weave such magic with words. How precious are those pictures in the mind he drew in there for me.
Ed Kiser, Kentucky