putterings 435 < 436 > 437 index
underneath the machine willy-nilly, nolens-volens, coûte-que-coûte
“You’ve only got a little time,” I warned him.
He tore open the tool box. He appeared as interested now in getting on as I was. In a moment he was poking and puttering among the screws and pipes.
“You’ll never be able to do anything,” I wailed, “until you lie on your back under it and look up. No one can ever mend an automobile until he does.”
“True enough,” he said. “One must grovel in the dust before it to propitiate the demon.”
ex George Hibbard, “An Automobile Love Story” (with drawings by A. deFord Pitney) in Leslie’s Monthly Magazine 59:5 (March 1905) : 566- 573 (572)
Indiana U copy/scan (via google books) : link
U California copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link
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A spirited young lady (and spirited narrator of the story, not to mention spirited driver of an automobile) seeks to bring her friend Sally Osborne, and her lover Arthur Frewen, back together after their having quarreled “irretrievably, irrevocably, irreconcilably.”
“...I was determined to do something, — and the thing to do seemed to be to bring them together as soon as possible. That neither would listen to any plan for a meeting, I was aware. Consequently, I should be obliged to play the part of a small Destiny and willy-nilly, – nolens-volens, — coûte-que-coûte, make them see see one another. As nearly as my powers and the limitations of custom, permitted, I had, as one might say, to pound their heads together.”
A comedy of mistaken identity ensues — involving a certain Mr. Gilbert Ramsay and a long, reckless drive — but all ends well.
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It’s the “poking and puttering” that gave pause, for it is in their etymology that the two expressions are joined at the hip : potter (v.)
“apparently frequentative of obsolete verb poten ‘to push, shove, poke,’ from Old English potian ‘to push’.”
etymonline : link
George A(biah) Hibbard (1858-1928)
Merited an “AP” obituary at The New York Times (July 4, 1928) : link
Here it is —
Buffalo, July 3 (AP). — George Hibbard, author, artist and assistant librarian of the Grosvenor Library, died here today. His age was 70.
A frequent contributor to magazines, he also published several books of short stories, the best known of which were “Iduna,” “The Governor” and “Nowadays.” One of his paintings, “The Hope Beyond the Clouds,” was exhibited at the National Academy of Design in New York.
Mr. Hibbard was a graduate of Harvard University, attended Columbia University Law School and was a member of the New York Bar.
Portrait of George Hibbard appears as frontispiece to the above number of Leslie’s Monthly Magazine : link
Harvard College, Class of 1880, Secretary’s Report, No. VI. (June, 1900) : link (archive.org)
writings (published books)
- Iduna, and other stories
New York, Harper, 1891.
LoC : permalink (and access to hathitrust)“Iduna” in The Century Magazine 32:1 (May 1886) : 49-61
“Iduna” Drawn by Mary Hallock Foote; Engraved by T. Cole.
linkMary Hallock Foote (1847-1938), artist, writer
wikipedia : link - Governor, and other stories
New York, C. Scribner’s Sons, 1892.
LoC : permalink (and access to hathitrust) - Nowadays and other stories
New York, Harper & brothers, 1893.
LoC : permalink (and access to hathitrust) - Stories of the railway
New York : Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1893.
LoC : permalink (and access to hathitrust) - Lenox. Illustrated by W. S. Vanderbilt Allen. [American Summer Resorts]
New York, Charles Scribner’s sons, 1896.
LoC : permalink (and access to hathitrust)
same (via archive.org) : linkLenox was a Gilded Age resort in Berkshire County, Massachusetts.
wikipedia : link - George Hibbard, “The Eyes of Affection” in
Their Husbands’ Wives : Harper’s Novellettes. Edited by William Dean Howells and Henry Mills Alden (1906) : 120-137
LoC : permalink (to volume, and access to hathitrust)
LoC : permalink (to Hibbard story)[followed by Grace Ellery Channing, “The Marriage Question” 138-181]
more (a random gathering)
- George Hibbard, “The Mystery of the Centenarian,” illustrated by John Clitheroe Gilbert, in Everybody’s Magazine 12:1 (January 1905) : 12-24
Princeton copy/scan (via google books) : link - George Hibbard, “The Flatterer” in Ainslee’s 15:5 (June 1905) : 118-128
U Minnesota copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link - George Hibbard, “The Mind Readers” (subtitled, in ToC, “The Great Love Fraud”) illustrated by Edmund Frederick, in The Red Book 16:5 (March 1911) : 933-944
LoC copy/scan (via archive.org) : link
all Red Book (1911), via archive.org : link - George Hibbard, “I Can’t Explain” in The Blue Book Magazine 20:4 (February 1915) : 768-775
via archive.org : link
“Wherein a small wooly dog plays the part of Cupid” (ToC)
“A sprightly little comedy wherein a small wooly dog causes many alarums and excursions and eventually brings about the happiness of two attractive young people.” - “Somewhere in New York” (illustration by F. C. Yohn) in Scribner’s Magazine 64:2 (August 1918) : 213-220
link
U California copy/scan (via hathitrust) : linkbrief (and dismissive notice in The Sun (August 4, 1918)
via NYS Historic Newspapers : link“...seems more suited to a cheap magazine than to Scribner’s, being a trite and improbable story of a girl’s capture of a German spy.”
F. C. Yohn (1875-1933)
wikipedia : link
see in particular (because it is so good!) :
“Frederick Coffay Yohn (1875-1933) Standing Male Nude” (July 27, 2010)
at Academic Nudes of the 19th Century : link - “Series of Faculty Lectures at Grosvenor Library Concluded by George Hibbard”
The Bee “The Greater University of Buffalo Weekly” (March 20, 1925)
via NYS Historic Newspapers : linka discussion of realism in fiction since the war.
among the 48 items for “George Hibbard” (not necessarily our writer/librarian; I have not checked each instance) in the years 1920-1929, via NYS Historic Newspapers : link
- fiction listed at Phil Stephensen-Payne his The General Fiction Magazine Index —
link
URLs seem to change, here, but the general index page is reliable : link
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Each of Hibbard’s three stories that I've read is in a different register — witty/sassy; serioso/poetic; suspense/espionage. The common denominator is romance. They might have been staged in television dramas of the 1950s; Rod Serling might have appreciated them.