Mason & Dixon

by Thomas Pynchon

Age of Reason?

There is a Countryside in my Thoughts, populated with agreeable Company, mapped with Romantick scenery, Standing-Stones and broken Archways, cedar and Yew, shaded Streams, and meadows a-riot with wild-flowers,—

cheese-rolling

Randwick,

Ma...

Copses,

Vicar,

Gloucester,

Quincentenariduodecuple

damasks

larking,

Ponderosity

Country Wife open and fair, City Wife a Creature of Smoke, Soot, Intrigue,

Crepuscule,

Menials,

Dhow

chagrin’d

Portico

Pistole

Cannonades,

Disquisition

malodorous

Vitrine,

Mitre,

Staindrop,

Devoirs,

Parsons

Impertinence.

Nabob

quotinoctian

perihelion

Caput Draconis,

Parallax,

Truculence

Farthing’s

Gleam

Claret

protuberant,

Greenwich Park,

Nutation,

noblesse oblige,

Mathesis.

Gloucestershire.

Antimony,

Gaolers?”

damask

Assizes,

Transom,

Defenestration

Clothiers