It had been a delicate question how to present Miss Brodie in both a favourable and an unfavourable light, for now, as their last term with Miss Brodie drew to a close, nothing less than this was demanded.

They went to the tram-car stop with her. “It has been suggested again that I should apply for a post at one of the progressive, that is to say, crank schools. I shall not apply for a post at a crank school. I shall remain at this education factory where my duty lies. There needs must be a leaven in the lump. Give me a girl at an impressionable age

She thought of Miss Brodie eight years ago sitting under the elm tree telling her first simple love story and wondered to what extent it was Miss Brodie who had developed complications throughout the years, and to what extent it was her own conception of Miss Brodie that had changed.

“She doesn’t drink,” said Sandy, “except for sherry on her birthday, half a bottle between the seven of us.” Miss Mackay could be observed mentally scoring drink off her list of things against Miss Brodie. “Oh, that’s all I meant,” said Miss Mackay.

some ways the most real and rooted people whom Sandy knew were Miss Gaunt and the Kerr sisters who made no evasions about their belief that God had planned for practically everybody before they were born a nasty surprise when they died. Later, when Sandy read John Calvin, she found that although popular conceptions of Calvinism were sometimes

Miss Brodie’s struggles with the authorities on account of her educational system were increasing throughout the years, and she made it a moral duty for her set to rally round her each time her battle reached a crisis.

her odd psychological treatise on the nature of moral perception, called “The Transfiguration of the Commonplace.”

“Does Miss Brodie tell you stories?” “Yes,” said Mary. “What about?” “History,” said Jenny and Sandy together, because it was a question they had foreseen might arise one day and they had prepared the answer with a brainracking care for literal truth. Miss Mackay paused and looked at them in the process of moving the cake from the table to the tray

Rose was greatly popular with these boys, which was the only reason why she was famed for sex, although she did not really talk about sex, far less indulge it.