F. Scott Fitzgerald and Von Arnum in "Fraulein Schmidt" are two
sources noted as possible origins of the phrase "tail that wags the
dog"--what is the full sentence in one or both sources in which that
phrase was used?

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Request for Question Clarification by blackbird-ga on 20 Mar 2004 07:26 PST

Dear anniej
I haven't been able to find the quotations freely available on the
Web, only on a subscribers-only site. Do you have access to the 2nd
edition of the Oxford English Dictionary or the Online Oxford English
Dictionary (at your local library, for example)? I have found the
information you are looking for but frustratingly for copyright
reasons believe I am not permitted to post the answer. However, I can
direct you to the reference in the Dictionary or give you the page
references for the 2 quotations you are interested in. Please let me
know if that would answer your question sufficiently.
Kind regards

blackbird

Hello.

The Von Arnim quote is as follows:

"I wonder why you do it. You say your father insists  on your going
everywhere with the Cheritons, and the Cheritons will not miss a
thing; but, after all isn't it rather weak to let yourself be led
round by the nose if your nose doesn't like it? It is as though
instead of a dog wagging its tail the tail should wag the dog. And all
Nature would stand aghast before such an improper spectacle."

source:
Page 70.
Elizabeth, 1866-1941.
Fräulein Schmidt and Mr. Anstruther / by the author of "Elizabeth and
her German garden," and "The Princess Priscilla's fortnight."
New York : Scribner, 1907.
Bibliographic data from the Library of Congress:
 
http://catalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v3=1&DB=local&CMD=010a+07021365&CNT=10+records+per+page

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The Fitzgerald quote is in a letter to Maxwell Perkins dated March 11, 1935.

Fitzgerald opens the letter with a very long paragraph in parentheses.
 In this paragraph, Fitzgerald mentions a variety of subjects
including Thomas Wolfe and expresses regret that he (Fitzgerald) had
previously indicated that he was disappointed with Wolfe's new book.
Fitzgerald hoped that his criticism wouldn't get back to Wolfe.

After closing the parenthesis, Fitzgerald shifts to completely
different subject.  That's the context of the quotation:

"This letter is a case of the tail (the parenthesis) wagging the dog.
Here is the dog. A man named John S. Martens writes me wanting to
translate Tender is the Night or This Side of Paradise or The Great
Gatsby into Norwegian.  He has written Scribners..."

source:
Page 260
 Fitzgerald, F. Scott (Francis Scott), 1896-1940. 
Letters. New York, Scribner [1963] 
Bibliographic data from the Library of Congress: 
http://catalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v3=1&DB=local&CMD=010a+63016755&CNT=10+records+per+page


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search strategy:
Like Blackbird above, I used the Oxford English Dictionary to obtain
the references. I then looked in the actual books.

I hope this helps.

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Clarification of Answer by juggler-ga on 20 Mar 2004 10:59 PST

I should have mentioned that "Elizabeth" was Von Arnim's pen name.

Victorian era, at least:

The Conundrum of the Workshops
http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_conundrum.htm

'We have learned to whittle the Eden Tree to the shape of a surplice-peg,
We have learned to bottle our parents twain in the yelk of an addled egg,
We know that the tail must wag the dog, for the horse is drawn by the cart;
But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old: "It's clever, but is it Art ?"'

hlabadie-ga