"That winter Michaelis came for a few days. He was a young Irishman who had already made a large fortune by his plays in America. He had been taken up quite enthusiastically for a time by smart society in London, for he wrote smart society plays. Then gradually smart society realized that it had been made ridiculous at the hands of a down-at-heel Dublin street-rat, and revulsion came. Michaelis was the last word in what was caddish and bounderish. He was discovered to be anti-English, and to the class that made the discovery this was worse than the dirtiest crime. He was cut dead, and his corpse thrown into the refuse-can.
Nevertheless Michaelis had his apartment in Mayfair, and walked down Bond Street the image of a gentleman, for you cannot get even the best tailors to cut their low-down customers, when the customers pay.
...
Michaelis obviously wasn't an Englishman, in spite of all the tailors, hatters, barbers, booters of the very best quarter of London. No, no, he obviously wasn't an Englishman: the wrong sort of flattish, pale face and bearing; and the wrong sort of grievance. He had a grudge and a grievance: that was obvious to any trueborn English gentleman, who would scorn to let such a thing appear blatant in his own demeanour." (25-6)
From Lady Chatterley's Lover, by D.H. Lawrence, 1928 [My copy: 1956].
Nevertheless Michaelis had his apartment in Mayfair, and walked down Bond Street the image of a gentleman, for you cannot get even the best tailors to cut their low-down customers, when the customers pay.
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| Single-Breasted Lounge Suit, 1918-20. From the collections at the V&A. |
Michaelis obviously wasn't an Englishman, in spite of all the tailors, hatters, barbers, booters of the very best quarter of London. No, no, he obviously wasn't an Englishman: the wrong sort of flattish, pale face and bearing; and the wrong sort of grievance. He had a grudge and a grievance: that was obvious to any trueborn English gentleman, who would scorn to let such a thing appear blatant in his own demeanour." (25-6)
From Lady Chatterley's Lover, by D.H. Lawrence, 1928 [My copy: 1956].