Tuesday, 29 May 2012

One seems to hear the bugles blowing for the Crusades

[']I rather wish sometimes, Connie,' said Lady Julia meditatively, 'that you were a little less of the grande dame. It's wonderful to watch you in action, I admit - one seems to hear the bugles blowing for the Crusades and the tramp of the mailed feet of a hundred steel-clad ancestors - but there's no getting away from it that you do put people's backs up a bit.'

P.G Wodehouse, Heavy Weather (1933), 240-241

Monday, 28 May 2012

A public-house for each individual inhabitant

The ideal towards which the City Fathers of all English county towns strive is to provide a public-house for each individual inhabitant; and those of Market Blandings had not been supine in this matter. From where Beach stood, he could see no fewer than six such establishments.

P.G. Wodehouse, Heavy Weather (1933), 153

Friday, 25 May 2012

The deceased was a Russian by birth, and therefore excitable

He did not attempt to disguise his own opinion, which was that the deceased had taken his own life. ... Various motives had been suggested, and the jury must bear in mind that the deceased was a Russian by birth, and therefore excitable, and liable to be overcome by feelings of melancholy and despair. He himself  had read a great deal of Russian literature and could assure the jury that suicide was of frequent occurrence among the members of that unhappy nation. We who enjoyed the blessing of being British might find that difficult to understand, but the jury could take it from him that it was so.

D.L. Sayers, Have his carcase (1932) 277