Alaska and Russian deal!?

[David Lockmiller]

I remember from my high school history days that the purchase of Alaska was initially referred to as Seward’s Folly. I Googled this search term and found the following entry on the Library of Congress website discussing the “Treaty with Russia for the Purchase of Alaska.”

On March 30, 1867, the United States reached an agreement to purchase Alaska from Russia for a price of $7.2 million. The Treaty with Russia was negotiated and signed by Secretary of State William Seward and Russian Minister to the United States Edouard de Stoeckl. Critics of the deal to purchase Alaska called it "Seward’s Folly” or “Seward’s Icebox." Opposition to the purchase of Alaska subsided with the Klondike Gold Strike in 1896.

The last line of this short statement immediately reminded me of a quotation that I had come across in my readings of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations. I was able to find easily the original source once again of the quotation by using the Index and the last three words from the Barlett’s quotation that had come to my mind.

The quotation is by Plutarch in his work “On the Tranquility of the Mind” and reads as follows: Like the man who threw a stone at a [bad word for female dog], but hit his step-mother, on which he exclaimed, “Not so bad!”

Note: Originally, [bad word for female dog] simply meant a female dog, and it still does. But around the year 1400, it gained currency as a disparaging term for a woman.

Isn't modern software wonderful, the word that I had originally typed was replaced automatically with "*****" and thus caused the necessity for this note.

And, as you can see from my signature line, Plutarch has been a continuing source of quotations for me.