Wolf by the ears

From Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia

Thomas Jefferson used this phrase several times:

"But, as it is, we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other."
- Thomas Jefferson to John Holmes, (discussing slavery and the Missouri question), Monticello, 22 April 1820.[1]

"we have the wolf by the ear and feel the danger of either holding or letting him loose."
- Thomas Jefferson to Lydia Huntley Sigourney, Monticello, 18 July 1824[2]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Ford 10:159. Note that Ford erroneously transcribed "ear" as "ears." Polygraph copy at the Library of Congress: http://memory.loc.gov/master/mss/mtj/mtj1/051/1200/1238.jpg.
  2. ↑ Published in the Magazine of American History, XXI (1891), 481. The draft of this letter, in Jefferson's hand, uses the same phrase as in the letter to Holmes: "wolf by the ear." The recipient copy of the letter, in the hand of Jefferson's granddaughter Virginia and signed by Jefferson, reads "wolf by the ears," which has been repeated in the published transcription.
Retrieved from "http://wiki.monticello.org/mediawiki/index.php/Wolf_by_the_ears"