Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
Grace Macaulay, then: seventeen, small and plump, with skin that went brown by the end of May. Her hair was black and oily, and had the hot consoling scent of an animal in summer. She disliked books, and was by nature a thief if she found a thing to be beautiful, but not hers. She didn’t know she couldn’t sing. She was inclined to be cross.
Sarah Perry • Enlightenment
cosmos : not just a synonym for universe, but a beautiful universe (cosmetic)
sophistry : rhetorical masters without a compass, from ancient Greece, hucksters and mercenaries; using the dark arts of craft to deceive populations.
philosophy : the communal pursuit of wisdom (philo = friends, sophia = wisdom).
prescient : foresight into the future thr
I discovered her. Charmante, a perfect Gretchen,4 and we’ve already become acquainted. The prettiest little thing, really!’
Leo Tolstoy • Anna Karenina (Penguin Classics)
Elinor honoured her for a plan which originated so nobly as this; though smiling to see the same eager fancy which had been leading her to the extreme of languid indolence and selfish repining, now at work in introducing excess into a scheme of such rational employment and virtuous self-control.
Jane Austen • Sense and Sensibility: with original illustrated
They approximated beauty without actually reaching it, much like Callum’s face typically looked to himself.
Olivie Blake • The Atlas Paradox (Atlas Series Book 2)
Think no unfair evil of her, pray: she had no wicked plots, nothing sordid or mercenary; in fact, she never thought of money except as something necessary which other people would always provide.