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September 1996

The drawing room comedy of Iris Murdoch

by Brooke Allen

one: Flavia says Hugo tells her that Augustina is in love with Fred.

two: “So you’ve got used to it at last.” “ "What an odd way of putting it."
"Well, it is startling, I am startled."
"Because it is so sudden."
"Because of what it is."
"Yes, it is like nothing on earth."
"
We are like nothing on earth."
"We are made divine. Let us be worthy."
"We shall be."
"To say we are sure may seem rash."
"And naive."
"But we
are sure."

three: He paid the taxi man. He rang the bell of the third floor flat. He pressed open the front door and began to climb. He heard Rosalind’s door opening above—and the pain now came back and the fear, the awfulness of the situation, its bottomless void, suddenly something out of Shakespeare, the dreadful peril of the Bard himself. He heard her door opening above and thought, I will recall this.

Qu ...

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Brooke Allens latest book is Moral Minority: Our Skeptical Founding Fathers (Ivan R Dee)
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This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 15 September 1996, on page 66
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