Corridors of Power by C.P. Snow

On the Sunday afternoon, my taxi drove through the empty, comfortable Cambridge streets, across the bridge by Queen's, along the Backs towards my brother's house. There he and Francis Getliffe were waiting for me. I hadn't come just to make conversation, but for a while we sat round the fire in the drawing-room: the bronze doors were not closed, and through the far window the great elm stood up against the cyclorama of sunset sky.

‘I must say,' I said, ‘it all looks remarkably placid.'