How rarely does one find people unaffectedly content with themselves and
their social status; keeping well within that status; not deigning in any way
to ape the attire of a superior class, or to attempt any other similar
deception of manner, and yet
attaining to dignity! On the bus I met two of these scarce creatures: a rather
ugly but pleasant-featured young man of 30, dressed, with a suspicion of
carelessness, in roughly-cut clothes of good material; a girl of 24 or 25, with
high cheek-bones and a face which, while indicating firmness of character, was
eager to smile; she wore a neat green-and-yellow dress, with a low hat to
match, plain and well made, but clearing inexpensive. Both belonged to what is
called the lower middle class, and both were well-to-do, in what their means
were obviously more than sufficient for their needs. They talked with a
Northern accent, quietly, confidentially, about domestic affairs, and were
certainly in love with each other – probably engaged to be married.
On neither side was
there any affectation of conventional manners,
not a trace of that low instinct to pose which one encounters so frequently in
public vehicles. They got off without stopping the bus; the man jumped down
first, and running along gave his hand to the girl, who sprang lightly forward
into the air, and smiled victoriously to
find herself safe on the ground . . . I very nearly said to the conductor,
‘Isn’t that pretty?’
Arnold Bennett's Journal - Friday, Juy 4th, 1896
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