Title : "Then I went on musing about why it was thought better and higher to love one's country than one's county, or town, or village, or house."
link : "Then I went on musing about why it was thought better and higher to love one's country than one's county, or town, or village, or house."
"Then I went on musing about why it was thought better and higher to love one's country than one's county, or town, or village, or house."
"Perhaps because it was larger. But then it would be still better to love one's continent, and best of all to love one's planet."
Wrote Rose Macaulay, in "The Towers of Trebizond" (1958).
I ran into that quote because — as you see in the previous post — I looked up "muse" in the OED.
This is a novel about some English people traveling in Turkey.A Turkish feminist doctor attracted to Anglicanism acts as a foil to the main characters. On the way, they meet magicians, Turkish policemen and juvenile British travel-writers, and observe the BBC and Billy Graham on tour. Aunt Dot proposes to emancipate the women of Turkey by converting them to Anglicanism and popularising the bathing hat....
The first sentence in the book is "'Take my camel, dear,' said my Aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass."
Aunt Dot — AKA Dorothea ffoulkes-Corbett — is, according to the Turkish feminist doctor, "a woman of dreams. Mad dreams, dreams of crazy, impossible things. And they aren't all of conversion to the Church, oh no. Nor all of the liberation of women, oh no. Her eyes are on far mountains, always some far peak where she will go. She looks so firm and practical, that nice face, so fair and plump and shrewd, but look in her eyes, you will sometimes catch a strange gleam.
And there's one of those lower-case double-f English surnames. If you want to delve into that strange question of capitalization, let me recommend "That’s all, ffoulkes!" (Grammarphobia).
I won't quote all the history and explanation, just 2 things at the end about novels.
First, in the 1853 novel, Cranford, by Elizabeth Gaskell, there's a Mr. ffoulkes, who “looked down upon capital letters and said they belonged to lately invented families.” He met a Mrs. ffaringdon and — “owing to her two little ffs” — married her.
Second, there's this, from “A Slice of Life,” P. G. Wodehouse (1926):
“Sir Jasper Finch-Farrowmere?” said Wilfred.
“ffinch-ffarrowmere,” corrected the visitor, his sensitive ear detecting the capitals.
Thus articles "Then I went on musing about why it was thought better and higher to love one's country than one's county, or town, or village, or house."
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