Wolcott Gibbs Quotes
Where it all will end, knows God.
Gibbs, Wolcott. "Time . . . Fortune . . . Life . . . Luce." The New Yorker, Condé Nast, 28 Nov. 1936, p. 20.
Charles was a young man who ruled under the thumb of his mother, Catherine de Medici. She and the leading Catholic political figures had decided to have the army massacre the Huguenots—Protestants—of France. Charles knew the massacre was to begin that night and tried to save his friend Rochefoucault, a Protestant, who was a member of the King’s court. He suggested several times that Rochefoucault not go home that evening but stay at the Louvre. The unsuspecting Rochefoucault felt that he had to get home to his wife and left explaining that to the King. Hence the King’s remark. Rochefoucault and his family were murdered that night. In the end, 50,000 Protestants were massacred in what has come to be known as the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew. Many of the palace servants were Protestants and were cut to ribbons throughout the palace. The King from a palace window shot a rifle at Protestants trying to swim the River Seine to escape, while his page kept reloading for him.
Wolcott Gibbs was an American editor, humorist, theatre critic, playwright and author of short stories, who worked for The New Yorker magazine from 1927 until his death. He is best remembered for his 1936 parody of Time magazine, which skewered the magazine's inverted narrative structure. Gibbs wrote, "Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind"; he concluded the piece, "Where it all will end, knows God!" He also wrote a comedy, Season in the Sun, which ran on Broadway for 10 months in 1950–51 and was based on a series of stories that originally appeared in The New Yorker.
