"Snob"

The good thing about one-dimensional fictional characters is that they can be made more trenchant and easier to understand. (If memory serves, E. M. Forster expounded on this at some length in "Aspects of a Novel".) Here, we have Edith Lavery - of 'a type, albeit a superior example of it: the English blonde with large eyes and nice manners' - versus Lady Uckfield, who combines 'a watchmaker's eye for detail with a madam's knowledge of the world' and whose 'completeness of self-image' awes.

• She knows about happiness - she's read about it all in books and seen it in movies - and she fundamentally believes in love, but...
• When you are forced into a decision, it is often the mouthing of one choice that makes you realise you really want the other.
• Edith... gazed at Charles with a kind of fresh-faced, open adoration that reminded me of Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet. When she'sgiven the horse.
• The (hotel) management follow(s) the age-old principle 'To them that hath shall be given'.
• (Physical beauty) remains one of the glories of human existence.
  The danger of beauty in the very young is that it can make the business of life seem deceptively easy.
• 'Who asked you to take him seriously?'
• As a general rule, the world takes you at your own estimation.
• To borrow a phrase from Trollope, when all was said and done, 'her lines had fallen in pleasant places'.
  

---

From Bermuda: Chris took an excellent picture of Locust and Wild Honey, a.k.a. monstera deliciosa.

quips & slips, no. 1

Hearing a coworker boasting of knowing enough to be dangerous, Yihua told him he was really ignorant enough to be annoying.
_________________________________________________
I took one of Ekrem's paper planes from his office but promised to bring it back into the fold later. Also out of my mouth: 'I really like your center fold idea. I'd never think of doing the center fold first.'
_________________________________________________
"It's unspeakable agony." "Then at least we don't have to hear about it."