My dear Oscar,

Have I told you anything of the world of work? 

Work is virtually compulsory in this day and age, driving the cogs of the capitalist machine. Gone, to a large extent, are the truly leisured classes, those who could choose when and if they would ever deign to get their hands at all dirty. It is true that we have the super rich, but even they seem to do, rather than merely to exist; there always seems to be some business scam up and running, because everybody wants more money, so everybody is tied into its procurement. 

Private incomes are rare, and to live the way you did, Oscar, in a way which allowed you simply to be, seems to be beyond the grasp of most of the workforce of today. It is true that we no longer go down the mines, but many people spend their days travelling, working, eating and sleeping as an ongoing and never ending cycle. Commuters, they are called – commuting into their place of work and then commuting back home again. 

Oh – we do also have the old – in ever increasing numbers. Nobody seems to die off these days, and so an aged population, some with money to spend, people the towns and cities of our realm. In a way they have become the leisured classes, but of course their faculties deteriorate, and their mobility grows ever restricted, so that in most cases, and in some way, they always become a burden. 

Now in your day the vast majority of them would have died off, but not now.  We have the advances of science and medicine to thank for keeping them all alive. One hundred years of age is starting to become commonplace! 

Anyway – my point here is that very many people do have to go to work, have to inhabit the workspace, and as a consequence, have to mix with a set of people with whom they would never normally associate in quite a close and intimate, and certainly ongoing, way. Tension, rivalries, hatreds flare up and make themselves known, as do love affairs, extra-marital affairs, friendships, and collusions. It is not a healthy atmosphere, Oscar, and because all of it is driven by profit and loss, not hearts and souls, people are overloaded, or are dispensable, or can be made redundant, at the drop of a hat. There is no sense of security or surety, and there is certainly little commitment. 

I have to witness so much unhappiness publicly displayed. There is very often real distress in the workplace. You led a charmed life. You could do what you wanted to do, and make a profit from it. And you did have a very good start in life, with breeding and money and privilege, also the artistic leanings and succour of your mother, preparing you for the life that you led; not that it was a happy one, but it did have marvellously productive highlights. 

Most people do not get the chance, as well you know, and in a world like the modern day, where supposedly everything is on offer to everyone, where we have equal rights and equal citizenship, where opportunity is there for the taking, there is the pretence that success awaits all. 

Of course it is impossible. 

Most have to be drones. 

Only a few can be queens!

Your friend and constant support,

Algernon B. Duffoure.