Another Quote Attributed to a Quoted Other

In writing the other day about kittens, I quoted an eternal truth as expressed in verse by Ogden Nash:

The trouble with a kitten is

THAT

Eventually it becomes a

CAT

That attribution has provoked a literary footnote from attorney John Hamilton Scott: “It is said that Jeremiah Clarke died of despair because his best Trumpet Voluntary was constantly attributed to Henry Purcell. I sometimes think that Richard Armour is suffering the same fate by having his works constantly credited to Ogden Nash. Richard Armour is one of the best American writers of light verse, and I believe that he does not deserve to be obscured by the more well-known name of Nash.

“I must, therefore note that it was not Ogden Nash who wrote about kittens becoming cats; it was Richard Armour. His verse, entitled ‘Lady, your claws are showing,’ appeared in his first collection, entitled ‘Light Armour,’ and reads as follows:

One dreadful truth I rather wish

I did not know is that

The woman who is kittenish

May one day be a cat.

Let me say first that I am a friend and a great admirer of Richard Armour, and I agree that in the writing of light verse he has few peers. Armour achieves his felicitous rhymes without distorting words, as Nash often does, e.g., (from “Reflections on Babies”)--

A bit of talcum

Is always walcom

However, in Nash’s defense, I must say that I do not consider his verse on kittens plagiarism. Nash was writing about kittens. Armour about women. Though his point was that they are in some sense similar, it remains that they are two different species. Besides, an idea can not be copyrighted. Armour’s observation that kittenish women sometimes become cats, is no bar to Nash’s observation that kittens always become cats.

If Armour’s verses are sometimes attributed to Nash, it is also true that Nash’s verses are sometimes attributed to others. Most people think it was Dorothy Parker who made this classic observation--

Candy

Is dandy

But liquor

Is quicker

That was written by Ogden Nash.

Nash, on the other hand, is sometimes given credit for--

Men seldom make passes

At girls who wear glasses

That was written by Dorothy Parker.

Scott also notes that another famous Armour verse, “Going to Extremes,” appears in “Light Armour”--

Shake and shake

The catsup bottle.

None will come,

And then a lot’ll.

Another eternal truth encapsulated in four brief lines. (“ A lot’ll” is a precise rendition of how we say “A lot will.”)

Armour is living in retirement with his wife, Kathleen, in Claremont, and illness, alas, has strictured the flow from his own creative bottle. But in his creative lifetime Armour probably made more insightful comments on life in America, in fewer words, than any other writer.

He made fun of such sacred institutions as art, education, medicine, history and sports, among almost everything else. In “Good Looking,” from “All in Sport,” he employed a mischievous comma to make his point--

It’s not her figure skating that

Men find exhilarating.

No, what they’re always looking at

Is just her figure, skating

In the foreword Armour defined sport as--

Exercise

In disguise

He added: “That is about all I can say also for the verses in this little book: they are short and they rhyme. They scan, too, if your read them right. There is no use analyzing them for symbolism or hidden meaning or for the influence of Milton, John Donne, or T. S. Eliot.”

Dick Armour--a man for our times;

He sees, he scans, and he rhymes.