[possible spoiler for a 1945 novel]
In Brideshead Revisited, one of the characters becomes spiritually convicted of their own sin. This person says:
“Living in sin, with sin, by sin, for sin, every hour, every day, year in, year out. Waking up with sin in the morning, seeing the curtains drawn on sin, bathing it, dressing it, clipping diamonds to it, feeding it, showing it round, giving it a good time, putting it to sleep at night with a tablet of Dial if it’s fretful.”
I get the thrust of the passage. But what on earth’s “clipping diamonds”?