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He could see he was amusing her, as he drew her away from the thing that made her heavy, and sketched, and crayoned, and photographed from memory all manner of harmless gossip he took care that it should be harmless and such book-talk as he could command, with such a general sprinkling of sentimentalism, ready made and easy to handle, as American young men affect in talking to women.
So far as evening parties went, Miss Martineau soon perceived how little 'essential difference there is between the extreme case of a cathedral city and that of literary London, or any other place, where dissipation takes the turn of book-talk instead of dancing or masquerading. She went out to dinner every night except Sundays, and saw all the most interesting people of the London of five-and-forty years ago.
And no mere commonplace language, either, but rattling, out-and-out book-talk and bristling with metaphor, too just bristling! And as for command of language why YOU never see a bluejay get stuck for a word. No man ever did. They just boil out of him! And another thing: I've noticed a good deal, and there's no bird, or cow, or anything that uses as good grammar as a bluejay.
We stepped out like a man all of us, and kept it up as well as we could in book-talk, and at first all was merry as a dinner-bell; but presently Oswald, who was the 'very perfect gentle knight', could not help noticing that one of us was growing very silent and rather pale, like people are when they have eaten something that disagrees with them before they are quite sure of the fell truth.
And when it comes to nursing " Like an alto song pierced suddenly by one shrill treble note, the girl's immobile face sharpened transiently with a single jagged flash of emotion. "And when it comes to nursing? Ha! Helene Churchill! You can lead your class all you want to with your silk-lined manners and your fuddy-duddy book-talk!
"Oh, damn your self-respect!" he said brutally. "Your cursed book-talk is enough to drive a man to the devil. Anybody but you, with your 'views' and 'opinions' and fads and fancies generally, would be only too glad to oblige a good husband in such a small matter. And surely to God I know what is consistent with your self-respect!
In 1898, in a talk to some children in one of the schools just before the summer vacation, I asked those who were not going out of town to come to the library one afternoon every week for a book-talk, with a tableful of books such as they would not be likely to find for themselves. The talks have been kept up ever since.
For no sooner had he said: "Well we are all hoping so," than Gwen exclaimed: "Then there has been more Septimius Severus." Adrian accepted this without protest, as ordinary human speech; and the story feels confident that if its reader will be on the watch, he will very soon chance across something quite as unlike book-talk in Nature. Adrian merely said: "How on earth did you guess that?"
In his curious jargon of French and Italian, Gasparini had much to tell His Highness apart from book-talk. He entertained him with the latest scandals of the French Court; with gossip about well-known personages, from the Regent to Dubois. "And what about that rascal, the Duc de Richelieu?" asked the great man. "What tricks has he been up to lately?"
And no mere commonplace language, either, but rattling, out-and-out book-talk and bristling with metaphor, too just bristling! And as for command of language why YOU never see a bluejay get stuck for a word. No man ever did. They just boil out of him! And another thing: I've noticed a good deal, and there's no bird, or cow, or anything that uses as good grammar as a bluejay.
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