THE UPPER MIDDLE CIASS

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 141, 9 March 1940, Page 15

THE UPPER MIDDLE CIASS

“Mrs. Miniver,” by Jan Struther (London: Chatto and Windus). Readers of “The Times,” London, will know Mrs. Miniver, that personification of English upper middle class gentility and opinion. All that Mrs. Miniver does —in town with her successful and good-looking husband, at their country place or at the seaside with their charming children, or in Scotland for the shooting—is representative of her class at its outward best. She has taste, she is highly intelligent, she has a sense of humour, her attitude to the servants is impeccable and in contact with those whose walk in life is on a lower plane than hers she is unfailingly graceful with never a touch of condescension. In short, she is convention itself. Readers will form their opinions of her according to their social and political views. To many she will be perfect; to others she will typify all that stands in the way of altering the social status quo, though their sneers will not pierce her shining armour of personal charity and subtlely beguiling refinement. Yet all should know her, for she is an important part of the social pattern and to ignore her is to leave a large blank in the social history of the times, and particularly of the months immediately preceding the present war.