unearths some literary gems.
***
She had begun to wonder whether Wandlebury had walked away in the night, leaving the countryside unblotted by its tenancy.
***
“Most aggravating!” said Mr. Tyler, bustling in like a fussy little steamboat.
***
She had always wondered how you painted the town red—it sounded a fine thing to do.
***
In a new friend we start life anew, for we create a new edition of ourselves and so become, for the time being, a new creature.
***
“I suppose you are alluding to cubism.”
Mr. Abbott said he was—he really had very little idea as to what he had been alluding to, but this answer seemed fairly safe. Mr. Marvell evidently expected a reply in the affirmative and Mr. Abbott felt he deserved it—the claret was excellent.
***
“[Writing] isn’t like building—not a bit. In building, you see, you know beforehand what it’s going to be like; at least, I suppose you do. I mean, it would never do to start off building a house and find you’ve built a bridge, or something, when it was all finished.”
***
[Precursing JC-E dept.]
Everybody in Wandlebury was aware of the young Marvells' passion for collecting buttons[....]There were big buttons and small buttons, buttons with "necks," and buttons with holes; there were colored buttons—of every hue—there were white buttons, and black buttons, and buttons of mother-of-pearl.
[cf.]
FRANCES: Buttons, girlfriend, buttons! Buttons on Grand-muh-mah’s skirts, on her blouses and sweaters, on the television and the microwave console. Wooden buttons, steel buttons, plastic and ceramic buttons...Glass! Brass! Fourteen-karat gold! And genuine cousin of pearl!
PEARL: You see, what with one thing and another, I’d forgotten that among Cousin Frances’s eccentricities was this pronounced enthusiasm for buttons.
***
