Cecil Beaton's diary

"Friday, 30th July

...At 5.30 I went to tea with Emerald……The Princess de Polignac came in and said to Emerald, 'This charming young man came to dinner with me, and wrote me a beautiful letter.  Then, if you please, he sent me Tom Jones--but in a rare edition of two volumes of priceless value.'  This frightened me stiff for I asked myself how much that villainous Nancy would  charge me for this book.

I joined Jamesey at Rule's restaurant… I said that more people ought to keep diaries, but the trouble was that the most unscrupulous diarists were too scrupulous when it came to putting personal truths on paper. James said that Cecil [Beaton's] diary would be the chronicle of our age, that we would only live through it.  I said Eddy Sackville West kept one.  James said, 'We could not be hoisted to posterity on two spikier spikes.' "

Ancestral Voices  James Lees-Milne

"The Mysteries of Udolpho"

" 'But you should not persuade me that I think so very much about Mr Tilney, for perhaps I may never see him again.'
'Not see him again! My dearest creature, do not talk of it.  I am sure you would be miserable if you thought so.'
'No, indeed, I should not.  I do not pretend to say that I was not very much pleased with him; but while I have Udolpho to read, I feel as if nobody could make me miserable. Oh! the dreadful black veil! My dear Isabella, I am sure there must be Laurentina's skeleton behind it.'
'It is so odd to me, that you should never have read Udolpho before: but I suppose Mrs Morland objects to novels.'
'No, she does not.  She very often reads Sir Charles Grandison herself; but new books do not fall in our way.'
'Sir Charles Grandison! That is an amazing horrid book, is it not?--I remember Miss Andrews could not get through the first volume.'
'It is not like Udolpho at all; but yet I think it is very entertaining.'
'Do you indeed! -- you surprise me; I thought it had not been readable.  But, my dearest Catherine, have you settled what to wear on your head tonight?  I am determined at all events to be dressed exactly like you.  The men take notice of that sometimes you know.' "

Northanger Abbey   Jane Austen

Cottage libraries

"There had been a time when the hamlet readers had fed on stronger food [than novelettes], and Biblical words and imagery still coloured the speech of some of the older people.  Though unread, every well-kept cottage had still its little row of books, neatly arranged on the side table with the lamp, the clothes-brush and the family photographs.  Some of these collections consisted solely of the family Bible and a prayer-book or two; others had a few extra volumes which had either belonged to parents or been bought with other oddments for a few pence at a sale -- The Pilgrim's Progress, Drelincourt on Death, Richardsons' Pamela,  Anna Lee: the Maiden Wife and Mother,  and old books of travel and sermons.  Laura's greatest find was a battered old copy of Belzoni's Travels propping open someone's pantry window.  When she asked for the loan of it, it was generously given to her, and she had the, to her, intense pleasure of exploring the burial chambers of the pyramids with her author."

Lark Rise  Flora Thompson