From E.F. Benson's entertaining
Mapp and Lucia:
I am beginning to feel alive again. Do you remember...'My life hath crept so long on a broken wing.' That's what my life has been doing, but now I'm not going to creep anymore. And just for the time, I'm offf the age of Elizabeth. But there were other ages, the age of Pericles for instance. Fancy sitting at Socrates' feet or Plato's, and hearing them talk while the sun set over Salamis or Pentelicus. I must rub up my Greek....And then there's the age of Anne. What a wonderful time, Pope and Addison! So civilized, so cultivated. Their tea parties....It is a mistake to remain in the same waters too long...
from some blogs that mention the wonderful Mr. Benson: http://rochester-reader.blogspot.com/2011/02/new-collections-of-mapp-lucia-and.html and http://stuck-in-a-book.blogspot.com/2008/07/mapp-and-lucia.html -- there's also a British series I must check out:
