To Say Nothing of the Dog (Oxford Time Travel, #2)

by Connie Willis

time-travel, just as in comedy, timing is everything. Timing gives significance to things that would otherwise be the meaningless convergence of circumstance and incident. The significance may not be apparent right away; sometimes it may not be apparent for years. Often it’s only visible to us in retrospect:

for all you know, what you did yesterday was part of Time healing a wound you know nothing about.

Mrs Mering had obviously never been on the tube. It is a temporal universal that people never appreciate their own time, especially transportation. Twentieth-Century contemps complained about cancelled flights and gasoline prices, Eighteenth-Century contemps complained about muddy roads and highwaymen. No doubt Professor Peddick’s Greeks complained about recalcitrant

The end of the last sentence did not highlight, but it's enough to make the point!

The high-backed seats were upholstered in green velveteen, and the walls above were panelled in polished mahogany inlaid with a pattern of flowers. There were rich green plush curtains hung at the windows, and gas lamps in brackets on both sides, covered with etched-glass lampshades, and the luggage rack overhead, the hand rails, the arm rests, the curtain rings, were all of polished brass. Definitely not the tube.

How wonderful!