comic sans & courier

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dark blue with some red

“ ’Mamma, does he really love me? What do you think? Did men love you like this? And he’s so nice, he really is nice! Though he’s not really my type—he’s a bit . . . sort of narrow, like a clock on the wall . . . Do you know what I mean? . . . Narrow, you know, all grey and pale . . .’

    ‘You do say some silly things,’ said the countess.
    Natasha persisted. ‘Don’t you understand? Nikolay would. Now, take Bezukhov—he’s blue, dark blue with a bit of red, and his shape is square.’
    ‘You flirt with him, too,’ said the countess with a laugh.
    ‘No, I don’t. He’s a freemason. I’ve just found out. He’s a very nice man—dark blue with some red. How can I explain it?’ ”
——Leo Tolstoy, War & Peace, 1869; translated by Anthony Briggs, 2005. (p. 491)

she’s a blue-stocking now

“ ‘No, she’s a blue-stocking now. She’s renounced those old affairs for good,’ he said to himself. ‘There’s never been a case of a blue-stocking having any passions of the heart,’ he kept telling himself—a general principle he had picked up somewhere and certainly believed in. But curiously enough the presence of Boris in his wife’s drawing room—and he was nearly always there—had a physical effect on Pierre.”

—Leo Tolstoy, War & Peace, 1869; translated by Anthony Briggs, 2005. (pp. 478-479)

Green Dolphin Street

“Green Dolphin Street supplied the setting
The setting for nights beyond forgetting”
—Bronislaw Kaper & Ned Washington, “On Green Dolphin Street”, from the movie Green Dolphin Street, 1947. 

Sarah Vaughan

white ash

“It seemed to be getting lighter. To the left he could see a moonlit hillside and a black slope opposite that looked as steep as a wall. On this slope there was a white patch which Rostov couldn’t make out at all—was it a clearing the the wood catching the moonlight, some snow that hadn’t melted or white houses? He could have sworn there was something moving across the white patch. ‘It must be snow, or could it be white ash? . . . Why tash . . .?’ Rostov mused dreamily. ‘Not white ash . . . Tash . . . Na-tasha . . . sister . . . black eyes. Na-tasha. (Imagine her surprise when I tell her I’ve seen the Emperor!) Natasha . . . tasha . . .’ ”

—Leo Tolstoy, War & Peace, 1869; translated by Anthony Briggs, 2005. (pp. 282-283)

It was a dark but starry night

“It was a dark but starry night and the road shone black against the white snow that had fallen on the day of the battle.”

—Leo Tolstoy, War & Peace, 1869; translated by Anthony Briggs, 2005.

he was clearly no abstainer

“His face, already bright red in color—he was clearly no abstainer—now turned blotchy and his face twitched.”

—Leo Tolstoy, War & Peace, 1869; translated by Anthony Briggs, 2005.

Sleep after dinner is silver, sleep before dinner is gold

“The old gentleman was in fine fettle after his nap before dinner. (Sleep after dinner is silver, sleep before dinner is gold, was his motto.)”

—Leo Tolstoy, War & Peace, 1869; translated by Anthony Briggs, 2005.

one of those limpid ‘white nights’

“On one of those limpid ‘white nights’ typical of Petersburg in June Pierre got into a hired cab with every intention of going home. But the nearer he got, the more he realized it would be impossible to get to sleep on a night like this, when it was more like evening or morning.”

—Leo Tolstoy, War & Peace, 1869; translated by Anthony Briggs, 2005.
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