An early shock in Mary Delany’s life was being awakened by soldiers in the night, and given minutes to prepare to leave her home and parents. The shock is in the ‘red exclamation points’.
‘But it was two soldiers with guns in their hands barging toward their bedside like red exclamation points topped by gold epaulets.’
See also the bestellar review of this luminous book, complete with a mosaic of quotations and metaphors.
Source: Molly Peacock, The Paper Garden (London: Bloomsbury, 2012), p. 46
