A Glass of Blessings is neither arch, nor really remote from the daily rounds and daily tensions of many ordinary people in this America, to this day. Several of its characters are nonbelievers, several indulge in drink a lot stronger than tea, the patronizing of women is always spotted and is treated with amused irony—"'Shall we leave the gentlemen to their port and manly conversation. Women are supposed not to like port except in a rather vulgar way,'"—and as to sexual tensions and preoccupations, they are all there, hetero, homo, licit and illicit, just bobbing at the surface….

[There] is no skimming this novel for plot. No good buying it in London to read on the flight home. Instead it is the kind of book you dip into in peace and quiet, and proceed with the intention to steep yourself, like good China tea.

As Alice asked what is the use of a book without pictures and conversation, we may ask what is the use of a book without rape, incest, murder, battered wives, child abuse and racial strife. When we are looking for stimulants, do we really want to fuss about Indian tea or China tea when there are whisky and drugs? Barbara Pym's fine writing is characterized by understatement, by an irony that is always gentle, and by care in the choice of every word. She records the interactions of unexceptional people impelled by ordinary motives, both petty and kind, for whom responsibility, self-discipline and discretion are rules that are still in place.

It might be argued that Wilmet does not lift a teaspoon against social evils of which the English class system is a corrosive example. But one is more than a political self. Fiction's field is the ethical self. In spite of all the good things we've now won—sexual freedom, divorce, abortion, and Telling Everything—they are still secondary to, and less interesting than, the old values—responsibility, self-discipline, discretion. When you finish A Glass of Blessings you may find that your cheek muscles ache from all the grinning and that your better self is a little ratified.