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Saturday 31 December 2016

Happy New Year

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Enjoyment was pretty general, and so much the more prevailed in being unhampered by conventional restrictions. Absolute confidence in each other’s good opinion begat perfect ease, while the finishing stroke of manner, amounting to a truly princely serenity, was lent to the majority by the absence of any expression or trait denoting that they wished to get on in the world, enlarge their minds, or do any eclipsing thing whatever — which nowadays so generally nips the bloom and bonhomie of all except the two extremes of the social scale.

Thomas Hardy - The Three Strangers (1883)

4 comments:

Sackerson said...

I like that.

Demetrius said...

Been there, a time or two, between 1960 and 1980.

Demetrius said...

I should add that my in-laws lived at Alderminster a short distance away, so we became acquainted with many local pubs, preferring to avoid those on main roads etc.

A K Haart said...

Sackers - yes, it's a fair indication of social class.

Demetrius - happy days.