What ho, scholars!
I think I’ve worked out what the lower classes’ problem is, chaps. It seems to me that it can be summed up in three words: no intellectual ambition. This morning, for instance, I went into the kitchen and found Ethel, the cook, reading a recipe booklet. I mean, really, of all the vacuous, empty-headed things to read! I felt my gorge rising and I said to her straight out: "Ethel, my dear, how do you possibly hope to rise above your lowly station in life if you spend your time reading recipe booklets? Have you no intellectual curiosity, my dear woman?"
And of course, you know what the proletarian classes are like when subjected to a bit of stern but fair criticism. They don't like it one bit! And sure enough, the old dear duly flew off the handle and got herself into the most frightful lather and called me all the names under the sun. Why don't you cook your own supper then, My Lord & you'll soon be whining if I don't cook it right, My Lord & why don't you find yourself an intellectual cook then, My Lord & don't you dare call me lower class, My Lord, I'm upper working class and don't you forget it, etc etc etc! Really, chaps, these old fish-wives make the most ghastly high-pitched sound when cross!
I briefly considered taking a whip to her, but I am above all a man of benevolent and paternalistic instinct, so I confined myself to a mere shake of the head and have since laid down strict instructions that she is to read at least one chapter of Herodotus every Sunday. I shall test her each Monday morning and if her answers do not come up to scratch, then the whip will be duly administered without mercy.
You know what they say, chaps: spare the rod, spoil the prole.
Yours, etc
Viscount Crouchback
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