Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/362

 children—the more they show their need of support, the more engaging they are; in everything that women attempt they should show their consciousness of dependence." "Never ask a lady any questions about anything whatever," says the book of etiquette. "Familiarity is the greatest vice of society."

But times were changing every day, and the barrier between class and class was breaking down at every stage. To marry fortune was the dominating idea of every well-born household, and these fortunes were now being acquired by the middle classes of England. Here, too, we find the artistic, literary, and musical circles. From this great class sprang the novelists, the poets, the journalists, the writers that adorned the nineteenth century. Dickens, Thackeray, Keats, Wordsworth, Scott, Coleridge, Lamb, Maria Edgeworth, Harriet Martineau, Jane Austen, these did not belong to the exclusive circle chosen by the famous Committee of Six. They knew better than to apply. In the provincial towns and in the suburbs of London resided the middle class. Merchants and shopkeepers often lived in the City, but there were short stage carriages to such places as Islington,