Status Updates From The Complete Miss Mapp & Qu...

And so ends Queen Lucia, long may she reign

"'Yes, Georgie suspects something, but luckily he doesn't know what he suspects.'" (170)

"What did Robert know? Had they exquisite secrets from each other?" (165)

"'What she meant I suppose was consecutive fifths; you can't invert a fifth.'" (154) mmm you absolutely can, it's called a fourth, m'dear

"'Primarily it's Mrs. Lucas's fault, because she's quite the stupidest woman I ever saw, but it's partly your fault, too.'" (153)

"'She called Mrs Quantock Margarita, which, as you may know, is the Italian for Daisy.'" (137) is it?

"She had thought of starting a Dante class this winter, for printed Italian, if you had a dictionary and a translation in order to prepare for the class, could be easily interpreted; it was the spoken word which you had to understand without any preparation at all and not in the least knowing what was coming, that had presented such insurmountable difficulties." (132)

"She gave her silvery laugh, that started, so she had ascertained, on A flat above the treble clef." (100)

"'Tell me what happens here! I've always lived in town since the time a hook-nosed Hebrew, rather like Lady Ambermere, took me out of the gutter.'" (65) oh boy

"Mrs. Quantock, still impotently rebelling, resorted to the most dire
weapon in her armory, namely, sarcasm.
...
Lucia had a deadlier weapon than sarcasm, which was the apparent unconsciousness of there having been any. For it is no use plunging a dagger into your enemy's heart, if it produces no effect whatever on him." (47)

"'Yes, some of these Brahmins are of very decent family,' admitted Lady Ambermere. 'I was always against lumping all dark-skinned people together and calling them n******. When we were at Madras, I was famed for my discrimination.'" (39) I BET YOU WERE EEEEEEEK

"'Beloved lady, I know him very well indeed. I see into his clear white
soul.'" (26)

"He did portraits as well in pastel; these were of two types: elderly ladies in lace caps with a row of pearls, and boys in cricket shirts with their sleeves rolled up. He was not very good at eyes, so his sitters always were looking down, but he was excellent at smiles, and the old ladies smiled patiently and sweetly, and the boys gaily." (20) as it were

"The front door ... that ... Mrs. Lucas had found there was too dilapidated to be of the slightest service in keeping out wind or wet or undesired callers. She had therefore caused to be constructed an even older one made from the oak planks of a dismantled barn, and had it studded with large iron nails of antique pattern made by the village blacksmith." (7)

"Two were of the grey stone of the district and the middle one, to the door of which led the paved path, of brick and timber, latticed windows with stone mullions gave little light to the room within, and certain new windows had been added; these could be detected by the observant eye for they had a markedly older appearance than the rest." (7)

"But the chief difference is that, in Lucia words, 'that horrid thing which Freud calls sex' is utterly ignored. No writer nowadays could allow Georgie to do his embroidery and dye his hair and wear his little cape and sit for hours chatting with Lucia or playing celestial Mozartino, without hinting at Boys in the background." (x)