Consider Yourself Lucky

THERE has been a great deal of talk about how much people have changed since the fiasco of enforced mask-wearing and social curfews, be it the general air of pessimism in society or the reliability of the local bus service, but things were far worse in the past. Ten years into the twentieth century, for example, Virginia Woolf announced that human character had fundamentally altered:

“I am not saying that one went out, as one might into a garden, and there saw that a rose had flowered, or that a hen had laid an egg. The change was not sudden and definite like that. But a change there was nevertheless, and since we must be arbitrary, let us date it about the year 1910.”

Apparently, Mrs. Woolf began to notice a change in the behaviour of her cook. Prior to 1910 she had remained downstairs, in the kitchen, but after 1910 she kept coming into the living room to borrow a newspaper or ask for advice about a hat.

That certainly puts things into perspective. Unless one of your domestic servants is behaving oddly, you have absolutely nothing to worry about.