A Strange Coincidence

February 14, 2010 at 8:06 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: Company Aytch, Guy Mannering, Sam Watkins, Sir Walter Scott

We are all, I’m sure, familiar with the phenomenon of – upon learning a new word – “suddenly” seeing that word in print the next day or soon thereafter.  Perhaps the same may be said of learning of or reading new books.  As I have posted about earlier, I have been reading some Sir Walter Scott lately, having completed the novel, Waverley and having started the novel, Guy Mannering.  Well, lo and behold, as I’m reading Company Aytch last night, I come upon a sketch about one soldier, a certain Sergeant A.S. Horsley, whose knapsack is inspected by General Bragg’s inspector general, General Owleydousky.  The contents?  It included Ivanhoe, Guy Mannering(!), Rob Roy (all by Scott) and various other books.  It seems he ‘carried the literature for the regiment’.  I speculated earlier about my potentially being the ‘only person on the planet’ currently reading Guy Mannering.  And yet here in reading this book, looking back nearly 150 years, a poor soldier is tromping through the Civil War in Tennessee carrying this very same book.  Very cool.