Act Like A Lady

“There are aspects of the aristocratic life which people born average are never going to participate in. They’re never going to shop on Saville Row. They’re never going to pay a talented composer to write a requiem mass. They’re never going to subsidize the composition of an epic poem which pays tribute to the historic glories of their nation.

However, it’s not as though every aspect of an aristocrat’s life is cut off from the common man. An aristocrat doesn’t hold out a vision of the good life to the common man to taunt him—but to inspire him.

While a common man can’t patronize the arts, he can adopt the manners of someone who does. Even if a common man can’t spend like an aristocrat, he can behave like an aristocrat. He can listen to the sort of music which an aristocrat patronizes. He can hold his fork like an aristocrat, pass the salt like an aristocrat, and stand for women like an aristocrat. He can speak like an aristocrat and hold his tongue like an aristocrat. He can iron his shirt. Just like an aristocrat, he can come home in the evening to a clean home and made bed—the fact that it’s he who has made the bed matters little.”

-from Act Like A Lady, my latest for CiRCE