Newsgroups: alt.fan.wodehouse
From: hoey@sun13.aic.nrl.navy.mil (Dan Hoey)
Date: 1996/11/12
Subject: The soul and its tocsin

As Anne and I were ruminating on words the other day, she suggested
that we look in Poe's "Bells" for a use of the word "tocsin".  I don't
recall the word there, but I was sure I had seen it elsewhere.
Bartlett's familiar tome yielded up no references to Poe, but it seems
the poet Blake once mentioned,

  ``That tocsin of the soul, the dinner-gong.''

"What ho!" says I, "Could it be I've heard that wheeze before?"  It
sounds like something the Master would have bunged in on one of those
interminable country-house weekends (or perhaps one of those c.-h. ws.
that passes all too swiftly).  So will any of the fans assembled
please point me to an occurrence of this phrase in the canon, if it
exists?

Wishing for a concordance, I remain,

Dan Hoey
Hoey@AIC.NRL.Navy.Mil