For example, consider the difficulty in assessing the identity, or shall I call it the authenticity, of distinguishing a climber from a bounder. With an influx of instructors, guides, handlers or, what is commonly known as a posse, who specialize in posturing, preening and presenting a novice in everything from dress, to speech, to manners, to comportment, to style, it is becoming increasingly more difficult to discern the original from the manufactured. And does it matter?

I’d hate to think Bernard Shaw started it all in his most beloved Pygmalion. While he condemned the abominable language of the day and used it as the plot in creating a paragon of refinement, the brilliantly conceived Eliza Doolittle, he also had the wisdom to infuse the character, with a purity of spirit and heart that was woefully lacking in the more cultured and “refined” contemporaries of the emotionally bereft Professor Higgins that she aspired to.

I digress, but it continues to fascinate me how polished and turned out today’s icons are in mimicking quality and class as professionally tutored, while having little empathy, integrity, or moral character. But then again, there were countless ne’er-do-wells among the privileged of the past, I suppose.