This passage was substantially omitted from the Second Edition. I find it interesting to speculate why. Was it simply that it seemed stylistically a little de trop?
"... Burgundy. How can I describe it? The Pathetic Fallacy resounds in all our praise of wine. For centuries, every language has been strained to define its beauty, and had produced only wild conceits or the stock epithets of the trade. This Burgundy seemed to me, then, serene and triumphant ... it whispered faintly, but in the same lapidary phrase, the same words of hope."
The consequence, no doubt, of replacing one's typewriter with a dictaphone.
ReplyDeleteCan't imagine what writer and publishers were thinking. Seems perfectly accurate description.
ReplyDeleteIn his preface to the second edition Waugh remarked that he had deleted some of the "grosser" passages to do with eating and drinking, composed during wartime deprivation.
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