Less Than Angels

Re-read on October 16, 2016. Tempted to upgrade it to 5 stars.

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‰ЫПAnd so it came about that, like many other well-meaning people, they worried not so much about the dreadful things themselves as about their own inability to worry about them.‰Ыќ

‰ЫПShe had imagined that the presence of what she thought of as clever people would bring about some subtle change in the usual small talk. The sentences would be like bright jugglers‰ЫЄ balls, spinning through the air and being deftly caught and thrown up again. But she saw now that conversation could also be compared to a series of incongruous objects, scrubbing-brushes, dish-cloths, knives, being flung or hurtling rather than spinning, which were sometimes not caught at all but fell to the ground with resounding thuds.‰Ыќ