Mystery Quotes

The past week’s twitter quotes were mostly from mysteries.

“The proper use of bells is to work out mathematical permutations and combinations.” Dorothy Sayers, The Nine Tailors. Sayers’ comment on the English art of change-ringing.

“Truth isn’t in accounts but in account-books.” Josephine Tey, The Daughter of Time. Marta’s “woolly lamb” Brent Carradyne who happens to be a student of history, when faced with the fact that there was no contemporary historian for the alleged murder of the princes in the tower by their uncle, Richard III.

“It’s doin’ good that evil may come that is so embarrassin’” Dorothy Sayers, The Nine Tailors. Lord Peter is speaking, when his sympathies are “all on the wrong side.” The preceding sentence is “I know all about not doin’ evil that good will come.”

“Music is so often a grace and favor kind of business.” Alisa Craig (Charlotte MacLeod) Murder Goes Mumming. Rhys’ mother explaining to his very new finacé why she has identified Donald Condryke as “old money.”

“It’s a poor ringer that can’t raise his own bell.” Dorothy Sayers, The Nine Tailors Lord Peter, who has volunteered to assist with a nine-hour peal, when one of the other ringers offers to raise his bell.

“He was loved in his day.” Josephine Tey, The Daughter of Time. Grant’s comment at the end of their investigation of Richard III — not a bad epitath.

“He must be serious, competent, and above all accepting of his current position.” Sue Ann Bowling, Tourist Trap.  Zhaim, planning the death of the heir who has supplanted him.

Gaudy Night

All of the Sayers quotes for this week were from a single book, Gaudy Night. I didn’t plan it that way; I was looking for the quote about the chessmen and was overwhelmed by twitter-sized quotes. So I just stuck with the one book, close to the last of the books about Lord Peter, and in fact close to the end of Dorothy Sayers’ mystery writing career.

Dorothy Sayers was a Christian scholar, one of the first women to receive a degree from Oxford, and the story is set in a fictitious women’s college in that University. Lord Peter has been wooing Harriet (a mystery writer) ever since her first appearance in Strong Poison, and she also played a pivotal role in Have His Carcase. This book is as much a romance as a mystery.

Thursday: “The first thing a principle does is to kill somebody.” One of the things Lord Peter says to Harriet that she later recalls when she is realizing that he doesn’t want static stability.

Friday: “The confidante has a very heavy and thankless task.” Harriet to Miss Briggs, who has been trying to cope with Violet Cattermole’s problems.

Saturday: “This goes to prove that even minor poetry may have its practical purposes.” Harriet has jotted down the first eight lines of a sonnet in her notebook of the case, simply because it was the only paper immediately to hand when the lines came into her head. Later, when Lord Peter returns the notebook, he has added the sestet. The completed sonnet reads:

“Here then at home, by no more storms distrest,
Folding laborious hands we sit, wings furled.
Here in close perfume lies the rose-leaf curled,
Here the sun stands and knows not east or west.
Here no tide runs; we have come, last and best,
From the wide zone in dizzying circles hurled
To that still center where the spinning world
Sleeps on its axis, to the heart of rest.

“Lay on thy whips, O Love, that we upright
Poised on the perilous point, in no lax bed
May sleep, as tension at the verberant core
Of music sleeps; for if thou spare to smite,
Staggering, we stoop, stooping, fall dumb and dead,
And dying so, sleep our sweet sleep no more.”

Again, the part Lord Peter has added gives Harriet insight into his character. Challenge to the reader—find the definition of “verberant.” (Yes, it is a word.)

Sunday: “I loved them, and you gave them to me.” Harriet to Peter, when the carved ivory chessmen he gave her are destroyed. His response: “‘You gave them to me, and I loved them’ is all right, but ‘I loved them, and you gave them to me’ is irreparable.”

Monday: “What would that matter, if it made a good book?” Lord Peter to Harriet, after suggesting some changes to make one of her characters more human. (The suggested changes would require that (1) the whole book be rewritten, and (2) Harriet bare her soul to a degree she has been avoiding ever since being tried for murder.)

Tuesday: “The protective male? He was being about as protective as a can-opener.” Harriet’s response to Lord Peter’s suggestion.

Wednesday: “Guiltily, he reached for the damaged tissues and began Healing the injury.” Bowling. From Homecoming. Snowy has been conditioned from birth that his odd talents are both wrong and could get him killed if anyone found out about them.

Next week I’ll go back to random science fiction and fantasy, though I may use classics or other genres in the future.