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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pogre" data-source="post: 1254190" data-attributes="member: 6588">"For very nearly twenty years beforehand these two men had corresponded regularly about the finer points of English lexicography, but they had never met. Dr. Minor never seemed willing or able to leave his home at Crowthorne, never willing to come to Oxford. He was unable to offer any kind of explanation, or to do more than offer his regrets.Dr. Murray, who himself was rarely free from the burdens of his work at the dictionary headquarters, the famous Scriptorium in Oxford, had nonetheless dearly wished to see and thank his mysterious helper. And particularly so by the late 1890's, with the dictionary well on its way to being half completed: Official honors were being showered upon all its creators, and Murray wanted to make sure that all those involved - even men so apparently bashful as Dr. Minor - were recognized for the valuable work they had done. He decided he would pay a visit......Once he had made up his mind to go, he telegraphed his intentions, adding that he would find it most convenient to take a train that arrived at Crowthorne Station ... just after two on a certain Wednesday in November. Dr. Minor sent a wire by return to say that he was indeed expected and would be made most welcome. On the Journey from Oxford the weather was fine; the trains were on time; the auguries, in short, were good.At the railway station a polished landau and liveried coachman were waiting, and with James Murray aboard they clip-clopped back through the lanes of rural Berkshire. After twenty minutes or so the carriage turned up a long drive lined with tall poplars, drawing up eventually outside a huge and rather forbidding red-brick mansion. A solemn servant showed the lexicographer upstairs, and into a book-lined study, where behind immense mahoganey desk stood a man of undoubted importance. Dr. Murray bowed gravely, and launched into the brief speech of greeting he had rehearsed:'A very good afternoon to you, sir. I am Dr. James Murray of the London Philological Society, and editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. It is indeed an honour and privilege to at long last make your acquaintance - for you must be, kind sir, my most assiduous helpmeet, Dr. W. C. Minor?'There was a brief pause, a momentary air of mutual embarassment. A clock ticked loudly. There were muffled footsteps in the hall. A distant clank of keys. And then the man behind the desk cleared his throat, and spoke:'I regret, kind sir, that I am not. It is not at all as you suppose. I am in fact the Governor of the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. Dr. Minor is most certainly here. But he is an inmate. He has been a patient here for more than twenty years. He is our longest-staying resident.'"Winchester, Simon. The Professor and the Madman:A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary. Harper Collins, New York, New York (1998).There has got to be a Cthulhu adventure here! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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