When 17-year-old Sebastian Barnack, adolescent poet-hero of Aldous Huxley's new novel, arrived in Florence, Italy, he found life in the British colony revolving in oldtime Huxleyan fashion:
¶ Old Lord Worplesden, the amateur astronomer, had invited some girls up to his cosy observatory.
¶ Old Mrs. Gamble, the blind, tyrannical spiritualist, was listening to her hired companion, husky-voiced, Madonna-faced Veronica Thwale, absently read aloud from the works of Sir Oliver Lodge. Mrs. Thwale's mind was mainly absorbed in mulling over her favorite dreamin which her father, a Church of England canon, was crucified...