Our selection of Snobs has lately been too exclusively of a political
character. 'Give us private Snobs,' cry the dear ladies. (I have before
me the letter of one fair correspondent of the fishing village of
Brighthelmstone in Sussex, and could her commands ever be disobeyed?)
'Tell us more, dear Mr. Snob, about your experience of Snobs in
society.' Heaven bless the dear souls!--they are accustomed to the word
now--the odious, vulgar, horrid, unpronounceable word slips out of their
lips with the prettiest glibness possible. I should not wonder if it
were used at Court amongst the Maids of Honour. In the very best society
I know it is. And why not? Snobbishness is vulgar--the mere words
are not: that which we call a Snob, by any other name would still be
Snobbish.
Well, then. As the season is drawing to a close: as many hundreds
of kind souls, snobbish or otherwise, have quitted London; as many
hospitable carpets are taken up; and window-blinds are pitilessly
papered with the MORNING HERALD; and mansions once inhabited by cheerful
owners are now consigned to the care of the housekeeper's dreary LOCUM
TENENS--some mouldy old woman, who, in reply to the hopeless clanging
of the bell, peers at you for a moment from the area, and then slowly
unbolting the great hall-door, informs you my lady has left town, or
that 'the family's in the country,' or 'gone up the Rind,'--or what not;
as the season and parties are over; why not consider Party-giving Snobs
for a while, and review the conduct of some of those individuals who
have quitted the town for six months?
Some of those worthy Snobs are making-believe to go yachting, and,
dressed in telescopes and pea-jackets, are passing their time between
Cherbourg and Cowes; some living higgledy-piggledy in dismal little
huts in Scotland, provisioned with canisters of portable soup,
and fricandeaux hermetically sealed in tin, are passing their days
slaughtering grouse upon the moors; some are dozing and bathing away the
effects of the season at Kissingen, or watching the ingenious game of
TRENTE ET QUARANTE at Homburg and Ems. We can afford to be very bitter
upon them now they are all gone. Now there are no more parties, let us
have at the Party-giving Snobs. The dinner-giving, the ball-giving, the
DEJEUNER-giving, the CONVERSAZIONE-GIVING Snobs--Lord! Lord! what
havoc might have been made amongst them had we attacked them during the
plethora of the season! I should have been obliged to have a guard to
defend me from fiddlers and pastrycooks, indignant at the abuse of
their patrons. Already I'm told that, from some flippant and unguarded
expressions considered derogatory to Baker Street and Harley Street,
rents have fallen in these respectable quarters; and orders have been
issued that at least Mr. Snob shall be asked to parties there no more.
Well, then--now they are ALL away, let us frisk at our ease, and have at
everything like the bull in the china-shop. They mayn't hear of what is
going on in their absence, and, if they do they can't bear malice for
six months. We will begin to make it up with them about next February,
and let next year take care of itself. We shall have no dinners from
the dinner-giving Snobs: no more from the ball-givers: no more
CONVERSAZIONES (thank Mussy! as Jeames says,) from the Conversaziones
Snob: and what is to prevent us from telling the truth?
The snobbishness of Conversazione Snobs is very soon disposed of: as
soon as that cup of washy bohea is handed to you in the tea-room; or the
muddy remnant of ice that you grasp in the suffocating scuffle of the
assembly upstairs.
Good heavens! What do people mean by going there? What is done there,
that everybody throngs into those three little rooms? Was the Black Hole
considered to be an agreeable REUNION, that Britons in the dog-days here
seek to imitate it? After being rammed to a jelly in a door-way (where
you feel your feet going through Lady Barbara Macbeth's lace flounces,
and get a look from that haggard and painted old harpy, compared to
which the gaze of Ugolino is quite cheerful); after withdrawing your
elbow out of poor gasping Bob Guttleton's white waistcoat, from which
cushion it was impossible to remove it, though you knew you were
squeezing poor Bob into an apoplexy--you find yourself at last in
the reception-room, and try to catch the eye of Mrs. Botibol, the
CONVERSAZIONE-giver. When you catch her eye, you are expected to grin,
and she smiles too, for the four hundredth time that night; and, if
she's very glad to see you, waggles her little hand before her face as
if to blow you a kiss, as the phrase is.
Why the deuce should Mrs. Botibol blow me a kiss? I wouldn't kiss her
for the world. Why do I grin when I see her, as if I was delighted? Am
I? I don't care a straw for Mrs. Botibol. I know what she thinks about
me. I know what she said about my last volume of poems (I had it from
a dear mutual friend). Why, I say in a word, are we going on ogling
and telegraphing each other in this insane way?--Because we are both
performing the ceremonies demanded by the Great Snob Society; whose
dictates we all of us obey.
Well; the recognition is over--my jaws have returned to their usual
English expression of subdued agony and intense gloom, and the Botibol
is grinning and kissing her fingers to somebody else, who is squeezing
through the aperture by which we have just entered. It is Lady Ann
Clutterbuck, who has her Friday evenings, as Botibol (Botty, we call
her,) has Wednesdays. That is Miss Clementina Clutterbuck the cadaverous
young woman in green, with florid auburn hair, who has published her
volume of poems ['The Death-Shriek;' 'Damiens;' 'The Faggot of Joan
of Arc;' and 'Translations from the German' of course). The
conversazione-women salute each other calling each other 'My dear Lady
Ann' and 'My dear good Eliza,' and hating each other, as women hate who
give parties on Wednesdays and Fridays. With inexpressible pain dear
good Eliza sees Ann go up and coax and wheedle Abou Gosh, who has just
arrived from Syria, and beg him to patronize her Fridays.
All this while, amidst the crowd and the scuffle, and a perpetual buzz
and chatter, and the flare of the wax-candles, and an intolerable smell
of musk--what the poor Snobs who write fashionable romances call 'the
gleam of gems, the odour of perfumes, the blaze of countless lamps'--a
scrubby-looking, yellow-faced foreigner, with cleaned gloves, is
warbling inaudibly in a corner, to the accompaniment of another. 'The
Great Cacafogo,' Mrs. Botibol whispers, as she passes you by. 'A great
creature, Thumpenstrumpff, is at the instrument--the Hetman Platoff's
pianist, you know.'
To hear this Cacafogo and Thumpenstrumpff, a hundred people are gathered
together--a bevy of dowagers, stout or scraggy; a faint sprinkling of
misses; six moody-looking lords, perfectly meek and solemn; wonderful
foreign Counts, with bushy whiskers and yellow faces, and a great deal
of dubious jewellery; young dandies with slim waists and open necks, and
self-satisfied simpers, and flowers in their buttons; the old, stiff,
stout, bald-headed CONVERSAZIONE ROUES, whom You meet everywhere--who
never miss a night of this delicious enjoyment; the three last-caught
lions of the season--Higgs, the traveller, Biggs, the novelist, and
Toffey, who has come out so on the sugar question; Captain Flash, who is
invited on account of his pretty wife and Lord Ogleby, who goes wherever
she goes.
QUE SCAIS-JE? Who are the owners of all those showy scarfs and white
neckcloths?--Ask little Tom Prig, who is there in all his glory, knows
everybody, has a story about every one; and, as he trips home to his
lodgings in Jermyn Street, with his gibus-hat and his little glazed
pumps, thinks he is the fashionablest young fellow in town, and that he
really has passed a night of exquisite enjoyment.
You go up (with our usual easy elegance of manner) and talk to Miss
Smith in a corner. 'Oh, Mr. Snob, I'm afraid you're sadly satirical.'
That's all she says. If you say it's fine weather, she bursts out
laughing; or hint that it's very hot, she vows you are the drollest
wretch! Meanwhile Mrs. Botibol is simpering on fresh arrivals; the
individual at the door is roaring out their names; poor Cacafogo is
quavering away in the music-room, under the impression that he will be
LANCE in the world by singing inaudibly here. And what a blessing it is
to squeeze out of the door, and into the street, where a half-hundred of
carriages are in waiting; and where the link-boy, with that unnecessary
lantern of his, pounces upon all who issue out, and will insist upon
getting your noble honour's lordship's cab.
And to think that there are people who, after having been to Botibol on
Wednesday, will go to Clutterbuck on Friday!