'I was as polite to him as his breath would allow...'.
So wrote Jane Austen in a letter to her sister Cassandra, displaying the kind of withering insight and laughing bitchiness for which the British upper echelons are deservedly celebrated. Class is back on the agenda. It baffles our foreign friends and infuriates the liberal-left, but love them or loathe them - the toffs are once again in charge. Perhaps it is their turn.
In spite of the huff and puff of the chippy and envious, there is little wrong with a gentle class structure. It is also inevitable. Every society arranges and categorizes itself, divides into tribes, measures its own by region, trade, education, wealth or accent. Look at Germany, ostensibly classless but almost feudal in its deference. If it is done with humour and a light touch and does not stifle ambition and fulfilment, class simply adds colour to the backdrop. It matters not a damn that David Cameron wore white-tie and threw the occasional bread roll at university any more than it does Ed Milliband was purportedly hatched from an alien egg somewhere in a far-off galaxy.
From Monty Python onward, poking fun at ourselves through the prism of the British class system has become fair game. So it is a comedian can shudder at living in a middle-class enclave only a single postcode away from where they sell white bread; so it is another comic can mock the middle-class shoplifters who only steal organic humus and fair-trade produce. Everyone gets the joke and everyone longs to see more of Maggie Smith twitching and sniffing her way through Downton Abbey.
With the use of a single word, a Brit will betray his or her class; how a girl wears her hair or holds a wine glass will in an instant reveal her social roots. Outdated snobbery, some might argue. Not a bit of it. In Britain, we measure or prejudge on so much more than money alone. There is nuance and subtlety and that is refreshing.
As a self-confessed toff - condemned to my class by dint of circumstance, schooling and a family tree littered with various nobs and homes mentioned in the Domesday Book - I have never felt compelled to abandon my clan, voice or background. My friends range from those worth several hundred million pounds to those who are utterly impecunious. I doubt such variety would exist anywhere else. It is the middle-class that is far more guilt-laden for having escaped the class below and might explain why its members and not the workers provide the patronising backbone of modern Labour.
My, how the class thing rankles with some. It really matters to them. To the rest of us it is background noise, an amusing diversion. Without the toffs, the world would be more drab and never have encountered Nancy Mitford's observation: 'I like children, especially when they cry - for then someone comes to take them away'. Without toffs, I would not have heard of my mother's crushing putdown to a large African male who accosted her on holiday and enquired: 'Hey granny, you want sex?'. She replied: 'And who pays whom?' The man bolted. So live and let live, embrace the difference and allow the classes to breathe.
Naturally, those outside the toff strata tend to invest it with greater importance and impact than it deserves. To them, the upper-classes represent a dark and self perpetuating cabal of influence and control. They conveniently forget the thirteen years of a very different sort of political and chianti-swilling establishment. Misconception abounds. Not every toff is a Flashman; not every toff is toasted over an open fire during their first year at public school.
Class has long ceased to be a reliable pointer to future success and personal achievement. Privilege is no guarantee of inheriting the earth. And rightly so. When the mockney diction of the younger royals and more irritating politicians wallows in slack vowels and glottal stops, class distinction is obviously blurring. It would be a pity to lose it entirely, for something uglier and cheaper will surely take its place. The toffs should be celebrated. Somewhere, the old values - courage, understatement, humour, stoicism, a sense of duty and fair play - still exist. That is no small contribution.
A rather grand and ancient friend of my family once received an obscene phone-call. She listened attentively for several minutes before finally giving reply. 'Young man', she told the pervert. 'If you knew how old and fat I was - you wouldn't want to fuck me at all...'.
Now that's class.