Common type: "She was an excellent old woman, affectionate, charitable, and religious; but she was rather behindhand in general matters, and did not clearly understand much about anything in these latter days." Anthony Trollope, RALPH THE HEIR, 1871. #booksky

missouri theater, saint joseph, missouri, 1996

Rereading a couple of Golden Age mysteries (by Ngaio Marsh and Dorothy L. Sayers). The humor is strained and sophomoric, and classism seems to poison everything. The gentleman detectives are most annoying when their authors seem to consider them most charming. Disappointing! #booksky #mysteries

"But somehow marriage had made her childish; dependence had become an attitude, as if she had given him something irredeemable, and were always asking for it back." John le Carré, THE LOOKING GLASS WAR, 1965. #booksky

"He was conscious of her pleasant influence over him, and became at peace with himself when in her presence; just as a child is at ease with some one who is both firm and gentle." Elizabeth Gaskell, WIVES AND DAUGHTERS, 1866. #booksky

“[F}or many years she evaded marriage, just as her parents had feared, by persisting in an arm’s-length semi-engagement to Sam Blackwell, a rather unsatisfactory ironmaster from Dudley.” Ruth Brandon, GOVERNESS: THE LIVES AND TIMES OF THE REAL JANE EYRES, 2008. #booksky #novelinasentence

"...Rosamond was not one of those helpless girls who betray themselves unawares, and whose behaviour is awkwardly driven by their impulses, instead of being steered by wary grace and propriety." George Eliot, MIDDLEMARCH, 1871-2. #booksky

Anna's hummingbird: "Cloaked in iridescent feathers that flash green in the sunlight, the male ... also has a throat and crown embellished with a lustrous, rosy hue unique to the species." BOOK OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS, ed. James Cassidy et al., 1990. #booksky #birds

"What I liked best about myself, what I held fast to, he liked least." Doris Lessing, UNDER MY SKIN, 1994. #booksky

"'Are you happy?' she asked with disconcerting suddenness when they were driving back to the cottage. 'What a question!' he said, hoping that she would interpret his answer in the way that pleased her most." Barbara Pym, THE SWEET DOVE DIED, 1978. #booksky #novelinasentence

"She had, it is true, quailed at the prospect of drudgery and hard service; but she had felt no degradation in working for her bread, until she felt herself exposed to insolence and the coarsest pride." Charles Dickens, NICHOLAS NICKLEBY, 1839. #booksky

Someone should write a dissertation, if they haven't already, on the subject of overbearing aunts in late 19th- and early 20th-century British literature. They could start with Oscar Wilde and go on to P. G. Wodehouse and Elizabeth Bowen. 1/3 #booksky

"'What is that, my love?' said Mr. Casaubon (he always said 'my love', when his manner was the coldest)." George Eliot, MIDDLEMARCH, 1871-2. #booksky

"This descent of an orphan child on his life might have been superficially comic, or even touching. But the disheartening density of Proust was superimposed for him on a clear page of Wodehouse." Elizabeth Bowen, TO THE NORTH, 1932. #booksky

"It was hardly a year since they had come to live at Tipton Grange with their uncle, a man nearly sixty, of acquiescent temper, miscellaneous opinions, and uncertain vote." George Eliot, MIDDLEMARCH, 1871-2. #booksky

"Stumbling upon each other in this empty hour, they both seemed cast up--wrecked in fact, for with each of them something had miscarried--on a bleak little island of intimacy, too small to explore." Elizabeth Bowen, TO THE NORTH, 1932. #booksky

We went into the Little Chef for lunch and there was two good looking waiters in the shop and auntie Hazel was trying to pair Jenny up with one of them and her with the other one but they left me out of it. Cheek.

"...[T]he judgments so constantly passed upon the way people bear the loss of those whom they have deeply loved, appear to be even more cruel, and wrongly meted out, than human judgments generally are." Elizabeth Gaskell, WIVES AND DAUGHTERS, 1866. #booksky #grief

"Julian's sister, a pale tall woman dressed with neutral English good taste, appeared to be handsome, though her features were indistinct as though seen through wrappings of gauze." 1/2

"In an old house, dismal, dark and dusty, which seemed to have withered, like himself, and to have grown yellow and shrivelled in hoarding him from the light of day, as he had in hoarding his money, lived Arthur Gride." Charles Dickens, NICHOLAS NICKLEBY, 1839. #booksky #novelinasentence

"He was handsome, without being conceited; gentlemanly, without being foolishly fine. He talked easily, and never said a silly thing. He was perfectly well-appointed, yet never seemed to have given a thought to his dress." Elizabeth Gaskell, WIVES AND DAUGHTERS, 1866. #booksky

"...[S]he liked to receive confidences if these were conferred prettily, with some suggestion of her own specialness, not dropped on her toes all anyhow, like a bulky valise someone is anxious to put down." Elizabeth Bowen, TO THE NORTH, 1932. #booksky

We're 20 years older.

"Here was one of the advantages of having lived alone so long. The little bustling, active, cheerful creature, existed entirely within herself, talked to herself ..." 1/3 #booksky

"She ... reflected that she was an orphan, had had a French great-aunt and a troubled family history, had been confirmed when she was thirteen, was alone in her rich uncle's flat five stories up, and that her favourite poet was Matthew Arnold." Elizabeth Bowen, TO THE NORTH, 1932. #booksky

"You were a rotten companion for a poor girl. You wouldn't go to the theatre and you wouldn't talk nonsense." Dorothy L. Sayers, letter to John Cournos, 1924; quoted by Barbara Reynolds in DOROTHY L. SAYERS: HER LIFE AND SOUL, 1993. #booksky

"'This complicates matters,' said Gregson. 'Heaven knows, they were complicated enough before.' "'You're sure it doesn't simplify them?' observed Holmes." Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A STUDY IN SCARLET, 1887. #booksky

"Nothing could be as dear as the circle of reading-light round her solitary pillow." Elizabeth Bowen, TO THE NORTH, 1932. #booksky #reading

"Having read a good many novels about marriage, not to speak of some scientific books, she now knew not only why she was unhappy but exactly how unhappy she could still be." Elizabeth Bowen, TO THE NORTH, 1932. #booksky #novelinasentence

"One of the few people (Dickens was another) who was not delighted with the Great Exhibition [of 1851] was William Morris. He so deeply, viscerally, deplored the examples of modern taste on view there that he had to leave, and be sick outside." Liza Picard, VICTORIAN LONDON, 2005. #booksky

I'm reading Elizabeth Bowen's TO THE NORTH (1932), solely because it's the favorite novel of one of the main characters in Barbara Pym's AN UNSUITABLE ATTACHMENT (1982). I'm finding it dazzling and puzzling by turns, like an intricate piece of music that gives no clues to its ultimate shape. 1/2

"He was brought up in Spain by the Jesuits, destined for the priesthood. He became a Marxist... He married an English girl, and persuaded her to share a caravan and poverty with him in the West Country." Doris Lessing, UNDER MY SKIN, 1994. #booksky #novelinasentence

Chuck-will's-widow, a member of the nightjar family: "The ancients thought that nightjars sucked goats' milk at night... Undoubtedly, there were plenty of good insect meals to be found around the animals." 1/2 #booksky #birds

"He went to church on Sundays with the family and the congregation was amused to notice that he was always the first to leave, striding through the west gate, across two fields and straight into a pub called the Dun Cow." Barbara Reynolds, DOROTHY L. SAYERS: HER LIFE AND SOUL, 1993. #booksky

"And then I would be in love with one of these poets and painters. Not because they were glamorous, but because they were lost souls. Irresistible. But these were not men to be in love with. Not unless one had a talent for suffering." Doris Lessing, UNDER MY SKIN, 1994. #booksky #novelinasentence

Puddle portal, New Orleans

strater hotel, straight-on view, main street, durango, colorado, 1991

To bring a smile to your face A 2,000 year-old figurine of two ‘Dancing Dogs’ 🐾❤️ Blackware ceramic, Colima, West Mexico, 200 BC - 200 AD. 📷 Princeton University Art Museum #Archaeology

Stan Stane, North Ronaldsay, Orkney 📷 14.05.22 #StandingStoneSunday #Scape #Stunday #Orkney #LandscapePhotography #PhotographersofBlueSky

This is a detail from the Mykonos Vase. It shows what is believed to be the earliest depiction of the Trojan Horse. While Trojan troops suspiciously buzz around the horse and one strides across its back, we see nervous Greek faces at the little windows. 🕰️c675 BC 🏛️📷 Mykonos Archaeological Museum

No, really, you keep it.

"John ... was obliged to sell newspapers to help the family to make ends meet. At the age of twelve he left school and worked in a spinning factory, first as a bobbin boy, then as a piecer for two dollars fifty a week." Barbara Reynolds, DOROTHY L. SAYERS, 1993. #booksky #novelinasentence

Northern fulmar: "Disturbed, they vomit a vile, oily substance, the smell of which lingers almost as long as the memory of the encounter." BOOK OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS, ed. James Cassidy et al., 1990. #booksky #birds

"Nothing is simpler than to impress people by being silent, then coming in with a few decisive words." Doris Lessing, UNDER MY SKIN, 1994. #booksky

"She had a strange vague smile and a terribly inconsequent manner. Obviously, she was one of those people who listen to less than half of what is said to them. Yet, could the strangeness of some of her replies be attributed only to this?" Ngaio Marsh, DEATH OF A FOOL, 1956. #booksky

"...[F]or the last 5,000 years, the vast majority of humans have been submissive, cringing before authority and, apart from short-lived outbursts of protest, sacrificing themselves so that a small minority could live in luxury." Theodore Zeldin, AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF HUMANITY, 1994. #booksky

"In the meantime she had fallen in love with Captain Eric Whelpton. Tall, dark and very good-looking, he had been invalided out of the army and returned to Oxford in May 1918." Barbara Reynolds, DOROTHY L. SAYERS: HER LIFE AND SOUL, 1993. #booksky

The Yellow-rumped Warbler can't seem to sit still. Fun to see some this year. #birds #butter-butt

The Hooded Crane hails from Russia and Northern China. It stands about 3 ft. tall. Photo taken at International Vrane Foundation in Baraboo, WI. #birds #HoodedCrane