Why--Why did I and Wagley ever do so cruel an action as to introduce
young Sackville Maine into that odious 'Sarcophagus'? Let our imprudence
and his example be a warning to other gents; let his fate and that of
his poor wife be remembered by every British female. The consequences of
his entering the Club were as follows:--
One of the first vices the unhappy wretch acquired in this abode of
frivolity was that of SMOKING. Some of the dandies of the Club, such as
the Marquis of Macabaw, Lord Doodeen, and fellows of that high order,
are in the habit of indulging in this propensity upstairs in the
billiard-rooms of the 'Sarcophagus'--and, partly to make their
acquaintance, partly from a natural aptitude for crime, Sackville Maine
followed them, and became an adept in the odious custom. Where it is
introduced into a family I need not say how sad the consequences
are, both to the furniture and the morals. Sackville smoked in his
dining-room at home, and caused an agony to his wife and mother-in-law
which I do not venture to describe.
He then became a professed BILLIARD-PLAYER, wasting hours upon hours
at that amusement; betting freely, playing tolerably, losing awfully to
Captain Spot and Col. Cannon. He played matches of a hundred games with
these gentlemen, and would not only continue until four or five o'clock
in the morning at this work, but would be found at the Club of a
forenoon, indulging himself to the detriment of his business, the ruin
of his health, and the neglect of his wife.
From billiards to whist is but a step--and when a man gets to whist and
five pounds on a rubber, my opinion is, that it is all up with him. How
was the coal business to go on, and the connection of the firm to be
kept up, and the senior partner always at the card-table?
Consorting now with genteel persons and Pall Mall bucks, Sackville
became ashamed of his snug little residence in Kennington Oval, and
transported his family to Pimlico, where, though Mrs. Chuff, his
mother-in-law, was at first happy, as the quarter was elegant and
near her Sovereign, poor little Laura and the children found a woful
difference. Where were her friends who came in with their work of a
morning?--At Kennington and in the vicinity of Clapham. 'Where were her
children's little playmates?--On Kennington Common. The great thundering
carriages that roared up and down the drab-coloured streets of the
new quarter, contained no friends for the sociable little Laura.
The children that paced the squares, attended by a BONNE or a prim
governess, were not like those happy ones that flew kites, or played
hop-scotch, on the well-beloved old Common. And ah! what a difference at
Church too!--between St. Benedict's of Pimlico, with open seats, service
in sing-song--tapers--albs--surplices--garlands and processions, and
the honest old ways of Kennington! The footmen, too, attending St.
Benedict's were so splendid and enormous, that James, Mrs. Chuff's boy,
trembled amongst them, and said he would give warning rather than carry
the books to that church any more.
The furnishing of the house was not done without expense.
And, ye gods! what a difference there was between Sackville's dreary
French banquets in Pimlico, and the jolly dinners at the Oval! No more
legs-of-mutton, no more of 'the best port-wine in England;' but ENTREES
on plate, and dismal twopenny champagne, and waiters in gloves, and
the Club bucks for company--among whom Mrs. Chuff was uneasy and Mrs.
Sackville quite silent.
Not that he dined at home often. The wretch had become a perfect
epicure, and dined commonly at the Club with the gormandising clique
there; with old Doctor Maw, Colonel Cramley (who is as lean as a
greyhound and has jaws like a jack), and the rest of them. Here you
might see the wretch tippling Sillery champagne and gorging himself with
French viands; and I often looked with sorrow from my table, (on which
cold meat, the Club small-beer, and a half-pint of Marsala form the
modest banquet,) and sighed to think it was my work.
And there were other beings present to my repentant thoughts. Where's
his wife, thought I? Where's poor, good, kind little Laura? At this
very moment--it's about the nursery bed-time, and while yonder
good-for-nothing is swilling his wine--the little ones are at Laura's
knees lisping their prayers: and she is teaching them to say--'Pray God
bless Papa.'
When she has put them to bed, her day's occupation is gone; and she is
utterly lonely all night, and sad, and waiting for him.
Oh, for shame! Oh, for shame! Go home, thou idle tippler.
How Sackville lost his health: how he lost his business; how he got
into scrapes; how he got into debt; how he became a railroad director;
how the Pimlico house was shut up; how he went to Boulogne,--all this
I could tell, only I am too much ashamed of my part of the transaction.
They returned to England, because, to the surprise of everybody, Mrs.
Chuff came down with a great sum of money (which nobody knew she had
saved), and paid his liabilities. He is in England; but at Kennington.
His name is taken off the books of the 'Sarcophagus' long ago. When we
meet, he crosses over to the other side of the street; I don't call, as
I should be sorry to see a look of reproach or sadness in Laura's sweet
face.
Not, however, all evil, as I am proud to think, has been the influence
of the Snob of England upon Clubs in general:--Captain Shindy is afraid
to bully the waiters any more, and eats his mutton-chop without moving
Acheron. Gobemouche does not take more than two papers at a time for
his private reading. Tiggs does not ring the bell and cause the
library-waiter to walk about a quarter of a mile in order to give him
Vol. II., which lies on the next table. Growler has ceased to walk from
table to table in the coffee-room, and inspect what people are having
for dinner. Trotty Veck takes his own umbrella from the hall--the cotton
one; and Sydney Scraper's paletot lined with silk has been brought back
by Jobbins, who entirely mistook it for his own. Wiggle has discontinued
telling stories about the ladies he has killed. Snooks does not any
more think it gentlemanlike to blackball attorneys. Snuffler no longer
publicly spreads out his great red cotton pocket-handkerchief before the
fire, for the admiration of two hundred gentlemen; and if one Club Snob
has been brought back to the paths of rectitude, and if one poor John
has been spared a journey or a scolding--say, friends and brethren if
these sketches of Club Snobs have been in vain?
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS ON SNOBS
How it is that we have come to No. 45 of this present series of papers,
my dear friends and brother Snobs, I hardly know--but for a whole mortal
year have we been together, prattling, and abusing the human race; and
were we to live for a hundred years more, I believe there is plenty of
subject for conversation in the enormous theme of Snobs.
The national mind is awakened to the subject. Letters pour in every
day, conveying marks of sympathy; directing the attention of the Snob
of England to races of Snobs yet undescribed. 'Where are your Theatrical
Snobs; your Commercial Snobs; your Medical and Chirurgical Snobs; your
Official Snobs; your Legal Snobs; your Artistical Snobs; your Musical
Snobs; your Sporting Snobs?' write my esteemed correspondents. 'Surely
you are not going to miss the Cambridge Chancellor election, and omit
showing up your Don Snobs, who are coming, cap in hand, to a young
Prince of six-and-twenty, and to implore him to be the chief of their
renowned University?' writes a friend who seals with the signet of the
Cam and Isis Club. 'Pray, pray,' cries another, 'now the Operas are
opening, give us a lecture about Omnibus Snobs.' Indeed, I should like
to write a chapter about the Snobbish Dons very much, and another about
the Snobbish Dandies. Of my dear Theatrical Snobs I think with a pang;
and I can hardly break away from some Snobbish artists, with whom I have
long, long intended to have a palaver.
But what's the use of delaying? When these were done there would be
fresh Snobs to pourtray. The labour is endless. No single man could
complete it. Here are but fifty-two bricks--and a pyramid to build. It
is best to stop. As Jones always quits the room as soon as he has said
his good thing,--as Cincinnatus and General Washington both retired into
private life in the height of their popularity,--as Prince Albert,
when he laid the first stone of the Exchange, left the bricklayers to
complete that edifice and went home to his royal dinner,--as the poet
Bunn comes forward at the end of the season, and with feelings too
tumultuous to describe, blesses his KYIND friends over the footlights:
so, friends, in the flush of conquest and the splendour of victory, amid
the shouts and the plaudits of a people--triumphant yet modest--the Snob
of England bids ye farewell.
But only for a season. Not for ever. No, no. There is one celebrated
author whom I admire very much--who has been taking leave of the public
any time these ten years in his prefaces, and always comes back again
when everybody is glad to see him. How can he have the heart to be
saying good-bye so often? I believe that Bunn is affected when he
blesses the people. Parting is always painful. Even the familiar bore is
dear to you. I should be sorry to shake hands even with Jawkins for
the last time. I think a well-constituted convict, on coming home
from transportation, ought to be rather sad when he takes leave of
Van Diemen's Land. When the curtain goes down on the last night of a
pantomime, poor old clown must be very dismal, depend on it. Ha! with
what joy he rushes forward on the evening of the 26th of December
next, and says--'How are you?--Here we are!' But I am growing too
sentimental:--to return to the theme.
THE NATIONAL MIND IS AWAKENED TO THE SUBJECT OF SNOBS. The word Snob
has taken a place in our honest English vocabulary. We can't define it,
perhaps. We can't say what it is, any more than we can define wit, or
humour, or humbug; but we KNOW what it is. Some weeks since, happening
to have the felicity to sit next to a young lady at a hospitable table,
where poor old Jawkins was holding forth in a very absurd pompous
manner, I wrote upon the spotless damask 'S--B,' and called my
neighbour's attention to the little remark.
That young lady smiled. She knew it at once. Her mind straightway filled
up the two letters concealed by apostrophic reserve, and I read in her
assenting eyes that she knew Jawkins was a Snob. You seldom get them
to make use of the word as yet, it is true; but it is inconceivable how
pretty an expression their little smiling mouths assume when they speak
it out. If any young lady doubts, just let her go up to her own room,
look at herself steadily in the glass, and say 'Snob.' If she tries this
simple experiment, my life for it, she will smile, and own that the word
becomes her mouth amazingly. A pretty little round word, all composed of
soft letters, with a hiss at the beginning, just to make it piquant, as
it were.
Jawkins, meanwhile, went on blundering, and bragging and boring, quite
unconsciously. And so he will, no doubt, go on roaring and braying, to
the end of time or at least so long as people will hear him. You cannot
alter the nature of men and Snobs by any force of satire; as, by laying
ever so many stripes on a donkey's back, you can't turn him into a
zebra.
But we can warn the neighbourhood that the person whom they and Jawkins
admire is an impostor. We apply the Snob test to him, and try whether he
is conceited and a quack, whether pompous and lacking humility--whether
uncharitable and proud of his narrow soul? How does he treat a great
man--how regard a small one? How does he comport himself in the presence
of His Grace the Duke; and how in that of Smith the tradesman?
And it seems to me that all English society is cursed by this
mammoniacal superstition; and that we are sneaking and bowing and
cringing on the one hand, or bullying and scorning on the other,
from the lowest to the highest. My wife speaks with great
circumspection--'proper pride,' she calls it--to our neighbour the
tradesman's lady: and she, I mean Mrs. Snob,--Eliza--would give one of
her eyes to go to Court, as her cousin, the Captain's wife, did. She,
again, is a good soul, but it costs her agonies to be obliged to confess
that we live in Upper Thompson Street, Somers Town. And though I believe
in her heart Mrs. Whiskerington is fonder of us than of her cousins,
the Smigsmags, you should hear how she goes on prattling about Lady
Smigsmag,--and 'I said to Sir John, my dear John;' and about the
Smigsmags' house and parties in Hyde Park Terrace.
Lady Smigsmag, when she meets Eliza,--who is a sort of a kind of a
species of a connection of the family, pokes out one finger, which my
wife is at liberty to embrace in the most cordial manner she can devise.
But oh, you should see her ladyship's behaviour on her first-chop
dinner-party days, when Lord and Lady Longears come!
I can bear it no longer--this diabolical invention of gentility which
kills natural kindliness and honest friendship. Proper pride, indeed!
Rank and precedence, forsooth! The table of ranks and degrees is a lie,
and should be flung into the fire. Organize rank and precedence! that
was well for the masters of ceremonies of former ages. Come forward,
some great marshal, and organize Equality in society, and your rod
shall swallow up all the juggling old court goldsticks. If this is
not gospel-truth--if the world does not tend to this--if
hereditary-great-man worship is not a humbug and an idolatry--let us
have the Stuarts back again, and crop the Free Press's ears in the
pillory.
If ever our cousins, the Smigsmags, asked me to meet Lord Longears,
I would like to take an opportunity after dinner and say, in the most
good-natured way in the world:--Sir, Fortune makes you a present of
a number of thousand pounds every year. The ineffable wisdom of our
ancestors has placed you as a chief and hereditary legislator over me.
Our admirable Constitution (the pride of Britons and envy of surrounding
nations) obliges me to receive you as my senator, superior, and
guardian. Your eldest son, Fitz-Heehaw, is sure of a place in
Parliament; your younger sons, the De Brays, will kindly condescend
to be post-captains and lieutenants-colonels, and to represent us in
foreign courts or to take a good living when it falls convenient.
These prizes our admirable Constitution (the pride and envy of, &c.)
pronounces to be your due: without count of your dulness, your vices,
your selfishness; or your entire incapacity and folly. Dull as you may
be (and we have as good a right to assume that my lord is an ass, as the
other proposition, that he is an enlightened patriot);--dull, I say,
as you may be, no one will accuse you of such monstrous folly, as to
suppose that you are indifferent to the good luck which you possess, or
have any inclination to part with it. No--and patriots as we are, under
happier circumstances, Smith and I, I have no doubt, were we dukes
ourselves, would stand by our order.
We would submit good-naturedly to sit in a high place. We would
acquiesce in that admirable Constitution (pride and envy of, &c.)
which made us chiefs and the world our inferiors; we would not cavil
particularly at that notion of hereditary superiority which brought many
simple people cringing to our knees. May be we would rally round the
Corn-Laws; we would make a stand against the Reform Bill; we would die
rather than repeal the Acts against Catholics and Dissenters; we would,
by our noble system of class-legislation, bring Ireland to its present
admirable condition.
But Smith and I are not Earls as yet. 'We don't believe that it is
for the interest of Smith's army that De Bray should be a Colonel at
five-and-twenty, of Smith's diplomatic relations that Lord Longears
should go Ambassador to Constantinople,--of our politics, that Longears
should put his hereditary foot into them.
This bowing and cringing Smith believes to be the act of Snobs; and he
will do all in his might and main to be a Snob and to submit to Snobs
no longer. To Longears he says, 'We can't help seeing, Longears, that
we are as good as you. We can spell even better; can think quite as
rightly; we will not have you for our master, or black your shoes any
more. Your footmen do it, but they are paid; and the fellow who comes to
get a list of the company when you give a banquet or a dancing breakfast
at Longueoreille House, gets money from the newspapers for performing
that service. But for us, thank you for nothing, Longears my boy, and we
don't wish to pay you any more than we owe. We will take off our hats to
Wellington because he is Wellington; but to you--who are you?'
I am sick of COURT CIRCULARS. I loathe HAUT-TON intelligence. I believe
such words as Fashionable, Exclusive, Aristocratic, and the like, to
be wicked, unchristian epithets, that ought to be banished from honest
vocabularies. A Court system that sends men of genius to the second
table, I hold to be a Snobbish system. A society that sets up to be
polite, and ignores Arts and Letters, I hold to be a Snobbish society.
You, who despise your neighbour, are a Snob; you, who forget your own
friends, meanly to follow after those of a higher degree, are a Snob;
you, who are ashamed of your poverty, and blush for your calling, are
a Snob; as are you who boast of your pedigree, or are proud of your
wealth.
To laugh at such is MR. PUNCH'S business. May he laugh honestly, hit
no foul blow, and tell the truth when at his very broadest grin--never
forgetting that if Fun is good, Truth is still better, and Love best of
all.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Book of Snobs, by William Makepeace Thackeray