Murray himself, given his steadily advancing years, suspected that with Furnivall’s passing, his own end could not be too far off. And with offering take to Furnivall it was evident he had only just begun the monumental work on the entirety of the letter T. That single letter was to take him five long years—from 1908 until 1913—to complete. When he finished he was so relieved as to voice an incautiously optimistic forecast: “I have got to the stage where I can estimate the end. In all human probability the Oxford English Dictionary will be finished on my eightieth birthday, four years from
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