[An excerpt from a letter written by Honoria Lucasta, Dowager Duchess of Denver, to an American friend, 12th November, 1939:]
...You can't think how queer Piccadilly Circus looks with Eros gone and a sort of pyramid like King Cheops on a small scale built up over the fountain--though why they should take all that trouble I can't think; unless it's the water-mains, except that people feel very sentimental about it and if anyone dropped a bomb on it they'd feel the heart of Empire had stopped beating. Peter says we ought to do something constructive in the opposite direction and floodlight the Albert Memorial because the park would be better without it, but poor Queen Victoria would turn in her grave and, as I reminded him, he didn't know Queen Victoria personally: I did.
-Dorothy Sayers, The Wimsey Papers
2 comments:
I realize this quote makes no earthly sense to anyone who hasn't read the Peter Wimsey mysteries...
But I love this particular passage, particularly the wry comment about floodlighting the Albert Memorial. Marvelous stuff.
Ah, so you do sometimes write on our own blog! I found it!
(And I too like the wry comment).
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