U and non-U
Sir: Now that Nancy Mitford's U nonsense seems to be getting a second wind, it was reassuring to find Beverley Nichols (Notebook, November 24) disposing, with ducal authority, of the irrational taboo on mirror.' I have never understood how those who pretend to proscribe its use manage in its many specifically functional applications. Do they, for instance, refer to 'driving-' or 'shaving-looking-glasses"
The word was acceptable to Byron and Tennyson among others, but the authority of Shakespeare, which Mr Nichols acknowledges in passing, seems to me to be less than conclusive. Thus, in the play Richard II, we have the rightful king committing himself as far as:
"And if my name be sterling yet in England.
Let it command a mirror hither straight ..
To which the usurper — perhaps chary of a parvenu's faux pas at such a crisis — replies: "Go some of you and fetch a looking-glass," The matter was not simplified by his son succeeding as the 'mirror of all Christian kings'!
James Brock
Old Angel, Woodhill, Stoke St. Gregory, Taunton.
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