Both sorts of young men, mentioned in my last under the flippant names
of Wiggle and Waggle, may be found in tolerable plenty, I think, in
Clubs. Wiggle and Waggle are both idle. They come of the middle classes.
One of them very likely makes believe to be a barrister, and the other
has smart apartments about Piccadilly. They are a sort of second-chop
dandies; they cannot imitate that superb listlessness of demeanour, and
that admirable vacuous folly which distinguish the noble and high-born
chiefs of the race; but they lead lives almost as bad (were it but for
the example), and are personally quite as useless. I am not going to
arm a thunderbolt, and launch it at the beads of these little Pall
Mall butterflies. They don't commit much public harm, or private
extravagance. They don't spend a thousand pounds for diamond earrings
for an Opera-dancer, as Lord Tarquin can: neither of them ever set up a
public-house or broke the bank of a gambling-club, like the young Earl
of Martingale. They have good points, kind feelings, and deal honourably
in money-transactions--only in their characters of men of second-rate
pleasure about town, they and their like are so utterly mean,
self-contented, and absurd, that they must not be omitted in a work
treating on Snobs.
Wiggle has been abroad, where he gives you to understand that his
success among the German countesses and Italian princesses, whom he met
at the TABLES-D'HOTE, was perfectly terrific. His rooms are hung round
with pictures of actresses and ballet-dancers. He passes his mornings
in a fine dressing-gown, burning pastilles, and reading 'Don Juan' and
French novels (by the way, the life of the author of 'Don Juan,' as
described by himself, was the model of the life of a Snob). He has
twopenny-halfpenny French prints of women with languishing eyes, dressed
in dominoes,--guitars, gondolas, and so forth,--and tells you stories
about them.
'It's a bad print,' says he, 'I know, but I've a reason for liking it.
It reminds me of somebody--somebody I knew in other climes. You have
heard of the Principessa di Monte Pulciano? I met her at Rimini. Dear,
dear Francesca! That fair-haired, bright-eyed thing in the Bird of
Paradise and the Turkish Simar with the love-bird on her finger, I'm
sure must have been taken from--from somebody perhaps whom you don't
know--but she's known at Munich, Waggle my boy,--everybody knows the
Countess Ottilia de Eulenschreckenstein. Gad, sir, what a beautiful
creature she was when I danced with her on the birthday of Prince Attila
of Bavaria, in '44. Prince Carloman was our vis-a-vis, and Prince
Pepin danced the same CONTREDANSE. She had a Polyanthus in her bouquet.
Waggle, I HAVE IT NOW.' His countenance assumes an agonized and
mysterious expression, and he buries his head in the sofa cushions, as
if plunging into a whirlpool of passionate recollections.
Last year he made a considerable sensation by having on his table a
morocco miniature-case locked by a gold key, which he always wore round
his neck, and on which was stamped a serpent--emblem of eternity--with
the letter M in the circle. Sometimes he laid this upon his little
morocco writing-table, as if it were on an altar--generally he had
flowers upon it; in the middle of a conversation he would start up and
kiss it. He would call out from his bed-room to his valet, 'Hicks, bring
me my casket!'
'I don't know who it is,' Waggle would say. 'Who DOES know that fellow's
intrigues! Desborough Wiggle, sir, is the slave of passion. I suppose
you have heard the story of the Italian princess locked up in the
Convent of Saint Barbara, at Rimini? He hasn't told you? Then I'm not
at liberty to speak. Or the countess, about whom he nearly had the duel
with Prince Witikind of Bavaria? Perhaps you haven't even heard about
that beautiful girl at Pentonville, daughter of a most respectable
Dissenting clergyman. She broke her heart when she found he was engaged
(to a most lovely creature of high family, who afterwards proved false
to him), and she's now in Hanwell.'
Waggle's belief in his friend amounts to frantic adoration. 'What a
genius he is, if he would but apply himself!' he whispers to me. 'He
could be anything, sir, but for his passions. His poems are the most
beautiful things you ever saw. He's written a continuation of “Don
Juan,” from his own adventures. Did you ever read his lines to Mary?
They're superior to Byron, sir--superior to Byron.'
I was glad to hear this from so accomplished a critic as Waggle; for
the fact is, I had composed the verses myself for honest Wiggle one
day, whom I found at his chambers plunged in thought over a very dirty
old-fashioned album, in which he had not as yet written a single word.
'I can't,' says he. 'Sometimes I can write whole cantos, and to-day not
a line. Oh, Snob! such an opportunity! Such a divine creature! She's
asked me to write verses for her album, and I can't.'
'Is she rich?' said I. 'I thought you would never marry any but an
heiress.'
'Oh, Snob! she's the most accomplished, highly-connected creature!--and
I can't get out a line.'
'How will you have it?' says I. 'Hot, with sugar?'
'Don't, don't! You trample on the most sacred feelings, Snob. I want
something wild and tender,--like Byron. I want to tell her that amongst
the festive balls, and that sort of thing, you know--I only think about
her, you know--that I scorn the world, and am weary of it, you know,
and--something about a gazelle, and a bulbul, you know.'
'And a yataghan to finish off with,' the present writer observed, and we
began:--
'TO MARY
'I seem, in the midst of the crowd, The lightest of all; My laughter
rings cheery and loud, In banquet and ball. My lip hath its smiles and
its sneers, For all men to see; But my soul, and my truth, and my tears,
Are for thee, are for thee!'
'Do you call THAT neat, Wiggle?' says I. 'I declare it almost makes me
cry myself.'
'Now suppose,' says Wiggle, 'we say that all the world is at my
feet--make her jealous, you know, and that sort of thing--and that--that
I'm going to TRAVEL, you know? That perhaps may work upon her feelings.'
So WE (as this wretched prig said) began again:--
'Around me they flatter and fawn--The young and the old, The fairest are
ready to pawn Their hearts for my gold. They sue me--I laugh as I spurn
The slaves at my knee, But in faith and in fondness I turn Unto thee,
unto thee!'
'Now for the travelling, Wiggle my boy!' And I began, in a voice choked
with emotion--
'Away! for my heart knows no rest Since you taught it to feel; The
secret must die in my breast I burn to reveal; The passion I may
not. . . .'
'I say, Snob!' Wiggle here interrupted the excited bard (just as I was
about to break out into four lines so pathetic that they would drive you
into hysterics). 'I say--ahem--couldn't you say that I was--a--military
man, and that there was some danger of my life?'
'You a military man?--danger of your life? What the deuce do you mean?'
'Why,' said Wiggle, blushing a great deal, 'I told her I was going
out--on--the--Ecuador--expedition.'
'You abominable young impostor,' I exclaimed. 'Finish the poem for
yourself!' And so he did, and entirely out of all metre, and bragged
about the work at the Club as his own performance.
Poor Waggle fully believed in his friend's genius, until one day last
week he came with a grin on his countenance to the Club, and said, 'Oh,
Snob, I've made SUCH a discovery! Going down to the skating to-day, whom
should I see but Wiggle walking with that splendid woman--that lady of
illustrious family and immense fortune, Mary, you know, whom he wrote
the beautiful verses about. She's five-and-forty. She's red hair. She's
a nose like a pump-handle. Her father made his fortune by keeping a
ham-and-beef shop, and Wiggle's going to marry her next week.'
'So much the better, Waggle, my young friend,' I exclaimed. 'Better
for the sake of womankind that this dangerous dog should leave off
lady-killing--this Blue-Beard give up practice. Or, better rather
for his own sake. For as there is not a word of truth in any of those
prodigious love-stories which you used to swallow, nobody has been
hurt except Wiggle himself, whose affections will now centre in the
ham-and-beef shop. There ARE people, Mr. Waggle, who do these things
in earnest, and hold a good rank in the world too. But these are not
subjects for ridicule, and though certainly Snobs, are scoundrels
likewise. Their cases go up to a higher Court.'