The Power Of Good Writing

I have been titivating the Schwertz party scene today (the first full scene in my order) and there were a couple of passages in chapter 4 of VB which caught my eye,

The real aristocracy, the younger members of those two or three great brewing families which rule London, had done nothing about it [wearing fancy dress]. They had come on from a dance and stood in a little group by themselves, aloof, amused but not amusing. (VB p44)

Those two sentences do so much with such economy that one feels guilty about consigning them to the cutting room floor. I have found a place elsewhere for the brewing aristocracy jibe but the rest has to go.

There were about a dozen people left at the party; that hard kernel of gaiety that never breaks. It was about three o'clock. (VB p46)

I must remember that 'hard kernel of gaiety that never breaks' line the next time the clock strikes three at the rugby club and we are down to what likes to think of itself as the hard core. The lads will be so impressed.