> > > Diana's grandfather was the seventh Earl Spencer, an almost stupefyingly neat but pathologically rude man who feared none and intimidated all; for years, he practiced the quaint custom of greeting callers with a loaded shotgun. If the visitors were unwelcome or if the Earl remembered an offense, he simply lifted the firearm and at once watched the arrival turn to a departure.
For all that, the old Earl fancied art and literature and was in fact a gifted museum curator.
[from Diana: The Last Year, by Donald Spoto
Chapter 2, "Of Maidens and Mistresses"
Copyright 1997, Harmony Books, a division of Crown
Publishers, Inc. New York, New York]
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I often forget and have to be reminded that unexplainably hostile or negative behavior and interpersonal relations occur in every socioeconomic class. Unconsciously I fall into the habit of imagining that people who live a truly lovely life, a life of ease and privilege, are -- GOING TO BE NICE. !
Donald Spoto, the author of the above-quoted book, has written a flock of biographies -- Jackie, Diana, Hitchcock, Jesus Christ, James Dean, whatever-you-got.
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