The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University

Citation of Books Detail

Click here to return to the main list

Author QuotedThomas Philip Terry
Title QuotedTerry's Mexico
Date (Year/Month/Day)1940/03/29
Imprint[S.l.] : [s.n.]. 1909I
QuotationThere exists a figure in American literature who is a very interesting sort of figure, in his own strange way, and that is one T. Philip Terry, a writer of guidebooks to Mexico and Cuba. I have just come across him, and his imitation Baedekers. His books are bound like Baedekers and organized like them and printed like them: but there is a difference. Terry has a curious personality which dominates the way his guidebooks are written, and makes them entirely different from Baedekers. Sometimes you wonder whether this personal touch is very desirable: but it is, it makes his guidebooks good and funny. I can't say I admire his opinions about the Mexicans, whom he continually refers to as the "Mex." Nor am I happy with his notions of the religious backwardness of these superstitious natives.
Quotation SourceRun to the mountain: The Story of a Vocation. The journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 1, 1939-1941.; Edited by Patrick Hart, O.C.S.O. / San Francisco : Harper Collins. 1995, p. 159-60
Letter to 
Notes 
Link to Merton's Copy  

(If there is a link above showing up as a number, click it to open another window with a full text version.)