ABSTRACT
Most tolerably well-educated and sophisticated people saw the mid-Victorian scene as ridiculous or repellent or as both; crowded with stupid and hypocritical men and women who wore ugly clothes and lived among ugly fumiture in ugly houses. To many members of the middle and upper classes, by contrast, the mid-Victorian age began even between the wars to acquire a nostalgic charm which the war of 1939–45 an the post-war difficulties intensified. Mid-Victorian family life is, properly, a central fact of the greatest importance. There is ample evidence to show that it was capable of producing a vast amount of happiness and interest, a vivid sense of comfort, security and affectionate companionship. The sanctification of family life had shadows which selective Victorianism overlooks. The gap between the mid-Victorian age and ours widens and narrows and widens again.
