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unearths some literary gems.
From A Stroll before Sunset, by Rachel Ferguson:
***"About the title: I've come to the conclusion that The Eternal Triangle is a bit obvious. What price The Temporary Triangle?"***The perfect play would consist entirely of first acts. [On the whole, I'm inclined to agree!]***that hydra-headed monster whose surname is Technique[SURname!]***"And they tell me I am the rudest woman in London.""I say, what fun!...I mean, it must be quite wonderful to be the somethingest of something; the rest of us only get sick of being the nothing of anything."***"And then, take another instance--" The figures retreated, while their host, who had not desired to take the first one, muttered anew.***[Re. the disorientation of seeing one's dramatic manuscript as a professional typescript for the first time]It was, for instance, unnerving, to see one of the Duchess's best epigrams at the foot of page forty-seven, when in the original manuscript she said it in the middle of page sixty-three....***"We must get away and celebrate it," Mary discovered, "somewhere where one's mind has elbow room."[...]"Pity the Academy isn't on, it's such a good place to talk something else in.""The Tate? The Wallace?""I can't find my way there, I've tried twice, and now I'm sulky."***"There's an old bird who catches the same train as I do and makes the same joke to me....and if I chuck the job, I've left that end loose by doing him out of his joke."***"He said that quite apart from the slightness of their acquaintance he shrank from any course which would, however indirectly, place him in touch with her once more."Mary smiled. "He is a scream, isn't he? One can just hear him shrinking from courses."***"I often think of all the good jokes that are going to be made that we can't even imagine and that we shall never hear."***"Have you ever thought that some people have their counterparts in music? Flyte's a Bach fugue, satisfying and exact, yet somehow baffling because except to the expert ear he isn't quite music."***"You can't win, in psychology. The customer is always wrong."***"He's a lonely chap though he'd probably deny it by diagrams."***By the time the butler served dessert, their spiritual elbows were on the table.***[Are You a House Name?]Was there a Croyle at all, or was he a letterhead and trade name?...Hadn't he actually glimpsed the fellow once? But that might have been his partner? Or a dummy put there in perpetuo? Yet it had gone when he opened the door...dummies can be removed, but they are also seldom members of The Garrick...***
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