It may be that in today’s America, ostentation is preferred by snobs, as Mike Duggan notes, and found among the “vulgar, new money plutocrats” (Letters, November 24). But ostentation cannot signify “class”, which requires a certain effortless stylishness.
In the early 1960s, the aristocratic Earl of Home was for a short time the British prime minister. This irked Harold Wilson, the then leader of the Labour party. He berated Home for being out of touch with ordinary people by virtue of his being the 14th Earl of Home. Home’s amiable rejoinder that, “if I am the 14th Earl of Home, I suppose he is the 14th Mr Wilson”, had about it the gentle wit that comes with real class.
Gordon Bonnyman
East Sussex, UK
