For radio-transmission it has been found that certain passages of a rhythmical nature come out more clearly if wooden-headed sticks are used. The Timpani sometimes tend to sound blurred and even to have a blurring effect on the rest of the orchestral ensemble in broadcast music, when ordinary soft sticks are used in a strongly marked rhythm.

What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

The novel also reflects a Tolkienish nostalgia for an earlier England dominated by the rural squirarchy that Eliot absorbed so completely.

Carbonic acid is disengaged, and rises viewlessly into the atmosphere; nitrogen rushes into combination with hydrogen, and sends up invisible volumes of ammoniacal gas; […]