Talking to God
Sir: While reluctant to contradict a fellow American in the correspondence columns of a foreign publication (Letters, 4 April), Robert Brenton Betts is in error when he says that in the quatrain about Boston it is the Lodges rather than the Lowells ('who- ever they may be') who speak only to the 'Going . . . going . . . lost.' Cabots, who, in turn, speak only to God.
The social pre-eminence of the two fami- lies (at least in Boston) is so legendary that a brash young man was prompted to ask Godfrey Lowell Cabot, a patriarch with a well-earned reputation for irascibility, how it felt to be both a Lowell and a Cabot in Boston. After an ominous silence he said, 'I'm afraid that's a pretty silly question, Mr Cabot."Young man,' roared Mr Cabot, 'it's the damnedest silliest question I've been asked in 80 years.'
Frank A. Kelly, Jr
21 Forest Drive,
Newington, CT 06111, USA
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