Reading Notes #6

"[Y]ou might have ended up like old Crayke, rather more fond than has proved wise, of, ehrm, that is..."
"Fond of...?"
"Well, I'd assumed you knew; everyone else does. Here--spot of audit, perhaps--"
"Capsheaf?"
A sigh. "Shetland...I say how does one... well, actually, Shetland ponies. D'accord? now you're all up to date."
"Crayke and..."
"Oh, and female as well, so it seems."
"Hasn't the breed a certain... reputation for viciousness?"
"Yes well you'd be bitter too wouldn't you," put in Ratty McHugh. "Dreaming of attention from some Arab or Thoroughbred and getting old Crayke instead? Really."
"He's still...here at Cambridge?"
"Retired up north, actually, he and his companion, to a quite pleasant little croft, been in the family apparently for centuries, up on Mainland, near Mavis Grind... both of them written up, with some regularity, in the orthopedic journals... spending hugely on solicitors of course--even assuming they could find a registrar who'd even think about legitimizing--well I mean, it wouldn't be cheap, would it."
"He--wants to... marry..."
"It might seem odd I suppose... unless of course one has actually met Dymphna, and understands how charming, at least most of the time, she can--"
p. 492


"If [Katie's immigrant parents] had been sailing into the future, toward some unknowable form of the afterlife, what was this journey of Dally's the other way? A kind of release from death and judgment back into childhood?"
p. 505

Did Gibson Girls really avert their noses, as well as their eyes, from men they wanted to appear indifferent to?

Was Belgium really the most densely populated country on earth before World War I?