mind boggles/boggles the mind ?

[James Knight, MLIS]

Any more of these, and Mr. Clements is bound to think I'm _after_ 'im.

The Times, Friday, Jan 14, 1898; pg. 10; Issue 35413; col E
Mr. Balfour On Naval Defence. NAVALIS..
Category: Letters to the Editor

How crowded transports are to be protected against such a force, handled as
it would be by young officers of the Royal Navy, I fail to understand. It
is, in the late Mr. C. S. Calverley's words, "a thing imagination boggles at."

<! -- Mr. Calverley's words are cited again two years later, in another
letter to the editor -->

The Times, Tuesday, Apr 16, 1901; pg. 7; Issue 36430; col C
People in this country who pay any attention
Category: Editorials/Leaders

This may or may not be the case, though the spectacle of SIR HENRY
CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN and SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT carried out of the house by
policeman, like MR. FLAVIN and MR. TULLY, is something "the imagination
boggles at." [quotes in the original]

And so on...

At 01:38 PM 2/8/04, you wrote:
>And, after a poster at straightdope suggested that Wodehouse used the phrase
>"the imagination boggles" frequently, I searched newspaperarchive.
>
>There was a 1908 cite for "imagination boggles."

-------------------------------------------------------------
James L. Knight, MLIS,
jlk at 3geckos.net (Friday Harbor, WA)
james.knight at thomson.com (Thomson/Gale - West Region)
http://3geckos.net