I know that the words "The Horror! The Horror!" were written by Joseph Conrad, but I'm not sure where they occur. I think it was probably a short story where a man is moving from one house to another and is looking at all the accumulated stuff he has to box up.

(My mother taught English at Iowa State University for many years. A goodly number of her students were engineers who were not very interested in the fine points of literature. One fellow turned in a blue book where he had written "The whore! The whore!")

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

Answers

From the The Heart of Darkness....

The book was written in 1899 and published in 1902 in YOUTH: A NARRATIVE WITH TWO OTHER STORIES. The narrator Marlow depicts to his friends a journey in Africa, where he becomes curious about a man called Kurtz. Marlow works for a company that is only interested in ivory and he witnessess the suffering of the native workers. He goes on a journey to reach Kurtz, an agent whom Marlow expects by his reputation to be an apostle of Western altruism. He finds a man who has made himself the natives' god and who has decorated the posts of his hut with human skulls. Marlow tries to get Kurtz away down the river, but Kurtz dies: 'He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision - he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath - '"The horror! The Horror!" Back in Europe Marlow lies to Kurtz's fiancée, that "the last word he pronounced was - your name."

See, I can do other stuff besides tasteless humor :)

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

P.S. Apocalypse Now was loosely based on The Heart of Darkness, for those who prefer their literature in celluloid form...

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

Why...Carl...I Am impressed!!!!!!

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

Hey, I'm still in awe over the toothpaste...

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

Carl, and then there's also Vicks Vapo Rub...

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

Meemur... now that's just plain scary...

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001

The Horror! The Horror!

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001

You shouldn't use Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Soap on your sensitive bits, either. You'll be so, um, tingly, you won't be able to read the label.

The late Dr. Bronner's story and full text of labels are here

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001

Now we all need to apologize to Peter for thread drift... Sorry Peter :)

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001

What was the question?

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001