unearths some literary gems.
From Seven against Reeves, by Richard Aldington:
***
Just as Mr. Reeves was producing another Stravinsky passage on the electric bell, the door was flung open.
***
In the foreground was a hare which looked like a tortoise, and a tortoise which looked like a hare--for Mr. Marsbate had been to Eton and had heard of the problem of Achilles....
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Next time, she reflected, she would have a silent protégé--a mountaineer or a sculptor, who couldn't possibly perform in the drawing-room.
***
The acquaintance developed like a motion picture of growing vegetation. [I.e., a time-lapse; the acquaintance developed quickly.]
***
[The best scene is a party that occurs early on. Here are the highlights.]
"And the Press is here, my dear! Janet Fogherty of the Lick-Spittle, Jessie O'Dour of the Powder-Puff and McSwiney of the Sponge."
[...]
Mr. Hawksneetch... looked down his nose at Mr. Reeves as if gazing down the wrong end of a telescope. Mr. Reeves wasn't going to stand that, so he metaphorically turned the telescope round and looked distantly down his nose at Mr. Hawksneetch. Their instantaneous dislike for each other was as beautifully equal as an equation.
[...]
The room was about half-full of people all polly-doodling to each other with an air of much animation.
[...]
[Lady Blakebridge] was the widow of a minor official who had been knighted by mistake, owing to a clerical error in the Honours List; which so much annoyed the responsible authority that when the real man came up next year he only got an O.B.E.
[...]
"He's just published a monumental book on Dr. Johnson--much better than Boswell--oh, miles better--and such a success--two columns in the Log-roller and a page in the Back-scratcher."
[...]
Was this the face that launched a thousand novelists?
***
[More good names: Mrs. Faddiman-Fish and Mr. Higgins-Wragge. Higgins-Wragge is a composer, and later on people are described as dropping into a party at which he's performing for "a cup of coffee and a Higgins-Wragge."]
***
[And another good verb construction: "Darby-and-Joaning away."]
***
[And, not to neglect the theatrical programme: "Cloppety-Clop, the new revue."]
