"At 2.15 I joined the Hills at Miss Jourdain's and Miss Compton-Burnett's where they were lunching. A great occasion. Margaret Jourdain is patently jealous of Ivy Compton-Burnett, whom she keeps unapproachable except through herself. The two have lived together for years and are never parted. They are an Edwardian and remarkably acidulated pair. The coiffures of both look like wigs. Miss C.-B., whom I consider to be the greatest living English novelist, is upright, starchy and forthright. There is a bubbling undercurrent of humour in every observation that she makes, and she makes a good many, apparently hackneyed and usually sharp, in a rapid, choppy, rather old-fashioned upper-middle-class manner, clipping her breathless words. She enunciates clearly and faultlessly, saying slightly shocking things in a matter-of-fact tone, following up her sentences with a lot of 'dontcherknows', and then smiling perceptibly. She has a low, breasty chuckle. She has not unpleasing, sharp features, and her profile is almost beautiful. But she is not the kind of woman who cares tuppence for appearances, and wears a simple, unremarkable black dress which she smoothes down with long fingers."
James Lees-Milne, Diaries, 1942-1954
You can hear some of Dame Ivy's observations in an interview she gave to Studs Terkel in 1962. Part I is here, and part II here.
The 'almost beautiful' profile may be seen here. The 1942 portrait above is by Howard Coster.
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