The classic age of English society—as it seems in retrospect—was also the classic age of English fiction. Except for a few uncharted areas, the novelists knew where they stood (whether or not they liked it) and so did their readers. (1)_____________________________________, or at least more highly contrasting, pictures of society. It also allows some unity of theme.
During these decades the aristocracy and landed gentry, although less powerful than they had been, (2)_______________________________.
Their social prestige, which had substantially survived the changes of the thirties and forties, was to weaken under agricultural depression, electoral and military reform, the opening of the Civil Service to competitive examination, (3)_______________________________________. But this decline did not really set in until the closing years of the century.
