The Frightened Horse by Nykos Furcic
As one grows older, one's appreciation for etiquette and decorum - for acting in public at all times with propriety - grows ever more pronounced. Unseemly behaviour now seems uncalled for as well as uncouth.
Indeed, I find myself moving ever-closer towards the sophisticated position adopted by the aristocracy and memorably articulated by the English stage actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell: It doesn't matter what people do so long as they don't do it in the street and frighten the horses. In other words, public appearance matters more than private behaviour.
Indeed, I find myself moving ever-closer towards the sophisticated position adopted by the aristocracy and memorably articulated by the English stage actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell: It doesn't matter what people do so long as they don't do it in the street and frighten the horses. In other words, public appearance matters more than private behaviour.
This isn't - as some commentators mistakenly insist - a sign of bourgeois hypocrisy. It is, rather, an affirmation of hypocrisy as a noble value and social necessity (albeit rooted in performance and pretence).
The British aristocracy never embraced 19th-century ideals of domestic respectability and sexual morality with the same enthusiasm as the middle-classes, tending to favour libertarian permissiveness over authoritarian puritanism.
The British aristocracy never embraced 19th-century ideals of domestic respectability and sexual morality with the same enthusiasm as the middle-classes, tending to favour libertarian permissiveness over authoritarian puritanism.
Perhaps that's why the British working class have always loved toffs and why the latter often make such fine actors ...
