Produced by Sean Hackett; David Widger
THE BOOK OF SNOBS
By One Of Themselves
(William Makepeace Thackeray)
PREFATORY REMARKS
(The necessity of a work on Snobs, demonstrated from History, and proved
by felicitous illustrations:--I am the individual destined to write that
work--My vocation is announced in terms of great eloquence--I show
that the world has been gradually preparing itself for the WORK and the
MAN--Snobs are to be studied like other objects of Natural Science,
and are a part of the Beautiful (with a large B). They pervade all
classes--Affecting instance of Colonel Snobley.)
We have all read a statement, (the authenticity of which I take leave to
doubt entirely, for upon what calculations I should like to know is it
founded?)--we have all, I say, been favoured by perusing a remark,
that when the times and necessities of the world call for a Man, that
individual is found. Thus at the French Revolution (which the reader
will be pleased to have introduced so early), when it was requisite to
administer a corrective dose to the nation, Robespierre was found;
a most foul and nauseous dose indeed, and swallowed eagerly by the
patient, greatly to the latter's ultimate advantage: thus, when it
became necessary to kick John Bull out of America, Mr. Washington
stepped forward, and performed that job to satisfaction: thus, when
the Earl of Aldborough was unwell, Professor Holloway appeared with his
pills, and cured his lordship, as per advertisement, &c. &c.. Numberless
instances might be adduced to show that when a nation is in great want,
the relief is at hand; just as in the Pantomime (that microcosm) where
when CLOWN wants anything--a warming-pan, a pump-handle, a goose, or a
lady's tippet--a fellow comes sauntering out from behind the side-scenes
with the very article in question.
Again, when men commence an undertaking, they always are prepared
to show that the absolute necessities of the world demanded its
completion.--Say it is a railroad: the directors begin by stating that
'A more intimate communication between Bathershins and Derrynane Beg
is necessary for the advancement of civilization, and demanded by the
multitudinous acclamations of the great Irish people.' Or suppose it is
a newspaper: the prospectus states that 'At a time when the Church is
in danger, threatened from without by savage fanaticism and miscreant
unbelief, and undermined from within by dangerous Jesuitism, and
suicidal Schism, a Want has been universally felt--a suffering people
has looked abroad--for an Ecclesiastical Champion and Guardian. A body
of Prelates and Gentlemen have therefore stepped forward in this our
hour of danger, and determined on establishing the BEADLE newspaper,'
&c. &c. One or other of these points at least is incontrovertible: the
public wants a thing, therefore it is supplied with it; or the public is
supplied with a thing, therefore it wants it.
I have long gone about with a conviction on my mind that I had a work to
do--a Work, if you like, with a great W; a Purpose to fulfil; a chasm to
leap into, like Curtius, horse and foot; a Great Social Evil to Discover
and to Remedy. That Conviction Has Pursued me for Years. It has Dogged
me in the Busy Street; Seated Itself By Me in The Lonely Study; Jogged
My Elbow as it Lifted the Wine-cup at The Festive Board; Pursued me
through the Maze of Rotten Row; Followed me in Far Lands. On Brighton's
Shingly Beach, or Margate's Sand, the Voice Outpiped the Roaring of the
Sea; it Nestles in my Nightcap, and It Whispers, 'Wake, Slumberer, thy
Work Is Not Yet Done.' Last Year, By Moonlight, in the Colosseum,
the Little Sedulous Voice Came To Me and Said, 'Smith, or Jones' (The
Writer's Name is Neither Here nor There), 'Smith or Jones, my fine
fellow, this is all very well, but you ought to be at home writing your
great work on SNOBS.
When a man has this sort of vocation it is all nonsense attempting to
elude it. He must speak out to the nations; he must unbusm himself, as
Jeames would say, or choke and die. 'Mark to yourself,' I have often
mentally exclaimed to your humble servant, 'the gradual way in which you
have been prepared for, and are now led by an irresistible necessity
to enter upon your great labour. First, the World was made: then, as a
matter of course, Snobs; they existed for years and years, and were no
more known than America. But presently,--INGENS PATEBAT TELLUS,--the
people became darkly aware that there was such a race. Not above
five-and-twenty years since, a name, an expressive monosyllable, arose
to designate that race. That name has spread over England like railroads
subsequently; Snobs are known and recognized throughout an Empire on
which I am given to understand the Sun never sets. PUNCH appears at the
ripe season, to chronicle their history: and the individual comes forth
to write that history in PUNCH.'
I have (and for this gift I congratulate myself with Deep and Abiding
Thankfulness) an eye for a Snob. If the Truthful is the Beautiful, it is
Beautiful to study even the Snobbish; to track Snobs through history,
as certain little dogs in Hampshire hunt out truffles; to sink shafts in
society and come upon rich veins of Snobore. Snobbishness is like Death
in a quotation from Horace, which I hope you never have heard, 'beating
with equal foot at poor men's doors, and kicking at the gates of
Emperors.' It is a great mistake to judge of Snobs lightly, and think
they exist among the lower classes merely. An immense percentage of
Snobs, I believe, is to be found in every rank of this mortal life. You
must not judge hastily or vulgarly of Snobs: to do so shows that you are
yourself a Snob. I myself have been taken for one.
When I was taking the waters at Bagnigge Wells, and living at the
'Imperial Hotel' there, there used to sit opposite me at breakfast, for
a short time, a Snob so insufferable that I felt I should never get
any benefit of the waters so long as he remained. His name was
Lieutenant-Colonel Snobley, of a certain dragoon regiment. He wore
japanned boots and moustaches: he lisped, drawled, and left the 'r's'
out of his words: he was always flourishing about, and smoothing his
lacquered whiskers with a huge flaming bandanna, that filled the room
with an odour of musk so stifling that I determined to do battle with
that Snob, and that either he or I should quit the Inn. I first began
harmless conversations with him; frightening him exceedingly, for he did
not know what to do when so attacked, and had never the slightest notion
that anybody would take such a liberty with him as to speak first:
then I handed him the paper: then, as he would take no notice of these
advances, I used to look him in the face steadily and--and use my fork
in the light of a toothpick. After two mornings of this practice, he
could bear it no longer, and fairly quitted the place.
Should the Colonel see this, will he remember the Gent who asked him if
he thought Publicoaler was a fine writer, and drove him from the Hotel
with a four-pronged fork?
CHAPTER I--THE SNOB PLAYFULLY DEALT WITH
There are relative and positive Snobs. I mean by positive, such persons
as are Snobs everywhere, in all companies, from morning till night,
from youth to the grave, being by Nature endowed with Snobbishness--and
others who are Snobs only in certain circumstances and relations of
life.
For instance: I once knew a man who committed before me an act as
atrocious as that which I have indicated in the last chapter as
performed by me for the purpose of disgusting Colonel Snobley; viz, the
using the fork in the guise of a toothpick. I once, I say, knew a man
who, dining in my company at the 'Europa Coffee-house,' (opposite the
Grand Opera, and, as everybody knows, the only decent place for dining
at Naples,) ate peas with the assistance of his knife. He was a person
with whose society I was greatly pleased at first--indeed, we had met in
the crater of Mount Vesuvius, and were subsequently robbed and held to
ransom by brigands in Calabria, which is nothing to the purpose--a man
of great powers, excellent heart, and varied information; but I had
never before seen him with a dish of pease, and his conduct in regard to
them caused me the deepest pain.
After having seen him thus publicly comport himself, but one course was
open to me--to cut his acquaintance. I commissioned a mutual friend
(the Honourable Poly Anthus) to break the matter to this gentleman as
delicately as possible, and to say that painful circumstances--in nowise
affecting Mr. Marrowfat's honour, or my esteem for him--had occurred,
which obliged me to forego my intimacy with him; and accordingly we met
and gave each other the cut direct that night at the Duchess of Monte
Fiasco's ball.
Everybody at Naples remarked the separation of the Damon and
Pythias--indeed, Marrowfat had saved my life more than once--but, as an
English gentleman, what was I to do?
My dear friend was, in this instance, the Snob RELATIVE. It is not
snobbish of persons of rank of any other nation to employ their knife in
the manner alluded to. I have seen Monte Fiasco clean his trencher with
his knife, and every Principe in company doing likewise. I have seen,
at the hospitable board of H.I.H. the Grand Duchess Stephanie of
Baden--(who, if these humble lines should come under her Imperial eyes,
is besought to remember graciously the most devoted of her servants)--I
have seen, I say, the Hereditary Princess of Potztausend-Donnerwetter
(that serenely-beautiful woman) use her knife in lieu of a fork or
spoon; I have seen her almost swallow it, by Jove! like Ramo Samee, the
Indian juggler. And did I blench? Did my estimation for the Princess
diminish? No, lovely Amalia! One of the truest passions that ever was
inspired by woman was raised in this bosom by that lady. Beautiful
one! long, long may the knife carry food to those lips! the reddest and
loveliest in the world!
The cause of my quarrel with Marrowfat I never breathed to mortal soul
for four years. We met in the halls of the aristocracy--our friends and
relatives. We jostled each other in the dance or at the board; but the
estrangement continued, and seemed irrevocable, until the fourth of
June, last year.
We met at Sir George Golloper's. We were placed, he on the right, your
humble servant on the left of the admirable Lady G.. Peas formed part of
the banquet--ducks and green peas. I trembled as I saw Marrowfat helped,
and turned away sickening, lest I should behold the weapon darting down
his horrid jaws.
What was my astonishment, what my delight, when I saw him use his fork
like any other Christian! He did not administer the cold steel once. Old
times rushed back upon me--the remembrance of old services--his rescuing
me from the brigands--his gallant conduct in the affair with the
Countess Dei Spinachi--his lending me the 1,700L. I almost burst into
tears with joy--my voice trembled with emotion. 'George, my boy!' I
exclaimed, 'George Marrowfat, my dear fellow! a glass of wine!'
Blushing--deeply moved--almost as tremulous as I was myself, George
answered, 'FRANK, SHALL IT BE HOCK OR MADEIRA? I could have hugged
him to my heart but for the presence of the company. Little did Lady
Golloper know what was the cause of the emotion which sent the duckling
I was carving into her ladyship's pink satin lap. The most good-natured
of women pardoned the error, and the butler removed the bird.
We have been the closest friends over since, nor, of course, has George
repeated his odious habit. He acquired it at a country school, where
they cultivated peas and only used two-pronged forks, and it was only
by living on the Continent where the usage of the four-prong is general,
that he lost the horrible custom.
In this point--and in this only--I confess myself a member of the
Silver-Fork School; and if this tale but induce one of my readers to
pause, to examine in his own mind solemnly, and ask, 'Do I or do I not
eat peas with a knife?'--to see the ruin which may fall upon himself by
continuing the practice, or his family by beholding the example, these
lines will not have been written in vain. And now, whatever other
authors may be, I flatter myself, it will be allowed that I, at least,
am a moral man.
By the way, as some readers are dull of comprehension, I may as well
say what the moral of this history is. The moral is this--Society having
ordained certain customs, men are bound to obey the law of society, and
conform to its harmless orders.
If I should go to the British and Foreign Institute (and heaven forbid I
should go under any pretext or in any costume whatever)--if I should go
to one of the tea-parties in a dressing-gown and slippers, and not in
the usual attire of a gentleman, viz, pumps, a gold waistcoat, a crush
hat, a sham frill, and a white choker--I should be insulting society,
and EATING PEASE WITH MY KNIFE. Let the porters of the Institute hustle
out the individual who shall so offend. Such an offender is, as regards
society, a most emphatical and refractory Snob. It has its code and
police as well as governments, and he must conform who would profit by
the decrees set forth for their common comfort.
I am naturally averse to egotism, and hate selflaudation consumedly; but
I can't help relating here a circumstance illustrative of the point in
question, in which I must think I acted with considerable prudence.
Being at Constantinople a few years since--(on a delicate mission),--the
Russians were playing a double game, between ourselves, and it became
necessary on our part to employ an EXTRA NEGOTIATOR--Leckerbiss Pasha of
Roumelia, then Chief Galeongee of the Porte, gave a diplomatic banquet
at his summer palace at Bujukdere. I was on the left of the Galeongee,
and the Russian agent, Count de Diddloff, on his dexter side. Diddloff
is a dandy who would die of a rose in aromatic pain: he had tried to
have me assassinated three times in the course of the negotiation; but
of course we were friends in public, and saluted each other in the most
cordial and charming manner.
The Galeongee is--or was, alas! for a bow-string has done for him--a
staunch supporter of the old school of Turkish politics. We dined with
our fingers, and had flaps of bread for plates; the only innovation
he admitted was the use of European liquors, in which he indulged with
great gusto. He was an enormous eater. Amongst the dishes a very large
one was placed before him of a lamb dressed in its wool, stuffed with
prunes, garlic, assafoetida, capsicums, and other condiments, the most
abominable mixture that ever mortal smelt or tasted. The Galeongee ate
of this hugely; and pursuing the Eastern fashion, insisted on helping
his friends right and left, and when he came to a particularly spicy
morsel, would push it with his own hands into his guests' very mouths.
I never shall forget the look of poor Diddloff, when his Excellency,
rolling up a large quantity of this into a ball and exclaiming, 'Buk
Buk' (it is very good), administered the horrible bolus to Diddloff. The
Russian's eyes rolled dreadfully as he received it: he swallowed it with
a grimace that I thought must precede a convulsion, and seizing a bottle
next him, which he thought was Sauterne, but which turned out to be
French brandy, he drank off nearly a pint before he know his error. It
finished him; he was carried away from the dining-room almost dead, and
laid out to cool in a summer-house on the Bosphorus.
When it came to my turn, I took down the condiment with a smile, said
'Bismillah,' licked my lips with easy gratification, and when the next
dish was served, made up a ball myself so dexterously, and popped it
down the old Galeongee's mouth with so much grace, that his heart was
won. Russia was put out of court at once and THE TREATY of Kabobanople
WAS SIGNED. As for Diddloff, all was over with HIM: he was recalled to
St. Petersburg, and Sir Roderick Murchison saw him, under the No. 3967,
working in the Ural mines.
The moral of this tale, I need not say, is, that there are many
disagreeable things in society which you are bound to take down, and to
do so with a smiling face.