A donkey-ride and a boating-trip interspersed with ruins

“Un voyage en égypte, c'est une partie d'ânes et une promenade en bateau entremêlées de ruines.” —Ampère.

Ampère has put Egypt in an epigram. “A donkey-ride and a boating-trip interspersed with ruins” does, in fact, sum up in a single line the whole experience of the Nile traveller. Apropos of these three things—the donkeys, the boat, and the ruins—it may be said that a good English saddle and a comfortable dahabeeyah add very considerably to the pleasure of the journey; and that the more one knows about the past history of the country, the more one enjoys the ruins. Of the comparative merits of wooden boats, iron boats, and steamers, I am not qualified to speak.

A. Edwards, A Thousand Miles Up The Nile (1877), 2

They usually ended up going back to the provinces, those, that is, who did not end up on the streets, or in jail, or in Indo-China.

Jacques had not wanted to have supper in his apartment because his cook had run away. His cooks were always running away. He was always getting young boys from the provinces, God knows how, to come up and be cooks; and they, of course, as soon as they were able to find their way around the capital, decided that cooking was the last thing they wanted to do. They usually ended up going back to the provinces, those, that is, who did not end up on the streets, or in jail, or in Indo-China.

J. Baldwin, Giovanni's Room (1956), 25

If I had had any intimation that the self I was going to find would turn out to be only the same self from which I had spent so much time in flight, I would have stayed at home.

I wanted to find myself. This is an interesting phrase, not current as far as I know in the language of any other people, which certainly does not mean what it says but betrays a nagging suspicion that something has been misplaced. I think now that if I had had any intimation that the self I was going to find would turn out to be only the same self from which I had spent so much time in flight, I would have stayed at home.

J. Baldwin, Giovanni's Room (1956), 21

You can’t stop a committee once it’s made up its mind to waste money

‘She can’t take on the government,’ Blatt and Unwin agreed at lunchtime the next day. ‘Not when it’s in spending mood. You can’t stop a committee once it’s made up its mind to waste money. She’ll just have to compromise and climb down in face of competition,

P. Fitzgerald, At Freddie’s (1982), 155

Directors realise that audiences are not likely to have much grip on Shakespeare’s King John

Directors realise that audiences are not likely to have much grip on Shakespeare’s King John. They hardly know what to expect, except perhaps something about Magna Carta, which doesn’t figure in the play at all. Perhaps Shakespeare had never heard of it. In any case, he presents King John as a patriot, misguided, certainly, when he connives at the torture of his nephew little Prince Arthur, but standing out to his last breath against France. In the high Victorian theatre the actor playing the king used to sweep the crown from his head during his death scene and even hurl it into the wings, partly to indicate magnificent failure, and partly to keep some attention for himself. By that time the audience had already seen little Arthur die and his mother Constance run mad, their handkerchiefs were soaked, they had no more tears to shed. King John himself was left ranting on, against unfair competition.

P. Fitzgerald, At Freddie’s (1982), 89

Most of them are rubbish and do not help me understand him

Got some of Hardy's poems out of Holborn library ... Most of them are rubbish and do not help me understand him. They make me think of him as wallowing and moaning and wishing for the olden days and that he hadn't been such a cunt to his wife.

N. Stibbe, cited in J. Rogers, 'Living in someone else's life', SF88 (2025), 55

Heaven might comprise eating foie gras to the sound of trumpets.

Meanwhile, Smith's Christianity was one we might all enjoy. With God he was on good terms. God is, he wrote, best served by 'regular tenour of good actions ... the luxury of a false religion is to be unhappy'. And, on a trip to Brussels, he noted 'I think, possibly correctly, that Heaven might comprise eating foie gras to the sound of trumpets.'

S. Bayley, 'Taking the short view', SF87 (2025), 25