The Book of Snobs Part 1

The Book of Sn.o.bs.

by William Makepeace Thackeray.

PREFATORY REMARKS

(The necessity of a work on Sn.o.bs, demonstrated from History, and proved by felicitous ill.u.s.trations:--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--Sn.o.bs are to be studied like other objects of Natural Science, and are a part of the Beautiful (with a large B). They pervade all cla.s.ses--Affecting instance of Colonel Sn.o.bley.)

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 advertis.e.m.e.nt, &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 mult.i.tudinous 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 Sn.o.bS.

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, Sn.o.bs; 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; Sn.o.bs 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 Sn.o.b. If the Truthful is the Beautiful, it is Beautiful to study even the Sn.o.bbish; to track Sn.o.bs through history, as certain little dogs in Hampshire hunt out truffles; to sink shafts in society and come upon rich veins of Sn.o.bore. Sn.o.bbishness 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 Sn.o.bs lightly, and think they exist among the lower cla.s.ses merely. An immense percentage of Sn.o.bs, I believe, is to be found in every rank of this mortal life. You must not judge hastily or vulgarly of Sn.o.bs: to do so shows that you are yourself a Sn.o.b. 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 Sn.o.b so insufferable that I felt I should never get any benefit of the waters so long as he remained. His name was Lieutenant-Colonel Sn.o.bley, of a certain dragoon regiment. He wore j.a.panned 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 Sn.o.b, 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-p.r.o.nged fork?

CHAPTER I--THE Sn.o.b PLAYFULLY DEALT WITH

There are relative and positive Sn.o.bs. I mean by positive, such persons as are Sn.o.bs everywhere, in all companies, from morning till night, from youth to the grave, being by Nature endowed with Sn.o.bbishness--and others who are Sn.o.bs only in certain circ.u.mstances 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 Sn.o.bley; 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 a.s.sistance 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 circ.u.mstances--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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 Sn.o.b RELATIVE. It is not sn.o.bbish 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 pa.s.sions 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 gla.s.s 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-p.r.o.nged forks, and it was only by living on the Continent where the usage of the four-p.r.o.ng 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 Inst.i.tute (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 Inst.i.tute hustle out the individual who shall so offend. Such an offender is, as regards society, a most emphatical and refractory Sn.o.b. 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 circ.u.mstance ill.u.s.trative 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 a.s.sa.s.sinated 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, a.s.safoetida, capsic.u.ms, 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 quant.i.ty 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.

CHAPTER II--THE Sn.o.b ROYAL

Long since at the commencement of the reign of her present Gracious Majesty, it chanced 'on a fair summer evening,' as Mr. James would say, that three or four young cavaliers were drinking a cup of wine after dinner at the hostelry called the 'King's Arms,' kept by Mistress Anderson, in the royal village of Kensington. 'Twas a balmy evening, and the wayfarers looked out on a cheerful scene. The tall elms of the ancient gardens were in full leaf, and countless chariots of the n.o.bility of England whirled by to the neighbouring palace, where princely Suss.e.x (whose income latterly only allowed him to give tea-parties) entertained his royal niece at a state banquet. When the caroches of the n.o.bles had set down their owners at the banquethall, their varlets and servitors came to quaff a flagon of nut-brown ale in the 'King's Arms' gardens hard by. We watched these fellows from our lattice. By Saint Boniface 'twas a rare sight!

The tulips in Mynheer Van Dunck's gardens were not more gorgeous than the liveries of these pie-coated retainers. All the flowers of the field bloomed in their ruffled bosoms, all the hues of the rainbow gleamed in their plush breeches, and the long-caned ones walked up and down the garden with that charming solemnity, that delightful quivering swagger of the calves, which has always had a frantic fascination for us. The walk was not wide enough for them as the shoulder-knots strutted up and down it in canary, and crimson, and light blue.

Suddenly, in the midst of their pride, a little bell was rung, a side door opened, and (after setting down their Royal Mistress) her Majesty's own crimson footmen, with epaulets and black plushes, came in.

It was pitiable to see the other poor Johns slink off at this arrival!

Not one of the honest private Plushes could stand up before the Royal Flunkeys. They left the walk: they sneaked into dark holes and drank their beer in silence. The Royal Plush kept possession of the garden until the Royal Plush dinner was announced, when it retired, and we heard from the pavilion where they dined, conservative cheers, and speeches, and Kentish fires. The other Flunkeys we never saw more.

My dear Flunkeys, so absurdly conceited at one moment and so abject at the next, are but the types of their masters in this world. HE WHO MEANLY ADMIRES MEAN THINGS IS A Sn.o.b--perhaps that is a safe definition of the character.

And this is why I have, with the utmost respect, ventured to place The Sn.o.b Royal at the head of my list, causing all others to give way before him, as the Flunkeys before the royal representative in Kensington Gardens. To say of such and such a Gracious Sovereign that he is a Sn.o.b, is but to say that his Majesty is a man. Kings, too, are men and Sn.o.bs.

In a country where Sn.o.bs are in the majority, a prime one, surely, cannot be unfit to govern. With us they have succeeded to admiration.

For instance, James I. was a Sn.o.b, and a Scotch Sn.o.b, than which the world contains no more offensive creature. He appears to have had not one of the good qualities of a man--neither courage, nor generosity, nor honesty, nor brains; but read what the great Divines and Doctors of England said about him! Charles II., his grandson, was a rogue, but not a Sn.o.b; whilst Louis XIV., his old squaretoes of a contemporary,--the great worshipper of Bigwiggery--has always struck me as a most undoubted and Royal Sn.o.b.

I will not, however, take instances from our own country of Royal Sn.o.bs, but refer to a neighbouring kingdom, that of Brentford--and its monarch, the late great and lamented Gorgius IV. With the same humility with which the footmen at the 'King's Arms' gave way before the Plush Royal, the aristocracy of the Brentford nation bent down and truckled before Gorgius, and proclaimed him the first gentleman in Europe. And it's a wonder to think what is the gentlefolks' opinion of a gentleman, when they gave Gorgius such a t.i.tle.

What is it to be a gentleman? Is it to be honest, to be gentle, to be generous, to be brave, to be wise, and, possessing all these qualities, to exercise them in the most graceful outward manner? Ought a gentleman to be a loyal son, a true husband, and honest father? Ought his life to be decent--his bills to be paid--his tastes to be high and elegant--his aims in life lofty and n.o.ble? In a word, ought not the Biography of a First Gentleman in Europe to be of such a nature that it might be read in Young Ladies' Schools with advantage, and studied with profit in the Seminaries of Young Gentlemen? I put this question to all instructors of youth--to Mrs. Ellis and the Women of England; to all schoolmasters, from Doctor Hawtrey down to Mr. Squeers. I conjure up before me an awful tribunal of youth and innocence, attended by its venerable instructors (like the ten thousand red-cheeked charity-children in Saint Paul's), sitting in judgment, and Gorgius pleading his cause in the midst. Out of Court, out of Court, fat old Florizel! Beadles, turn out that bloated, pimple-faced man!--If Gorgius MUST have a statue in the new Palace which the Brentford nation is building, it ought to be set up in the Flunkeys'

Hall. He should be represented cutting out a coat, in which art he is said to have excelled. He also invented Maraschino punch, a shoe-buckle (this was in the vigour of his youth, and the prime force of his invention), and a Chinese pavilion, the most hideous building in the world. He could drive a four-in-hand very nearly as well as the Brighton coachman, could fence elegantly, and it is said, played the fiddle well.

And he smiled with such irresistible fascination, that persons who were introduced into his august presence became his victims, body and soul, as a rabbit becomes the prey of a great big boa-constrictor.

I would wager that if Mr. Widdicomb were, by a revolution, placed on the throne of Brentford, people would be equally fascinated by his irresistibly majestic smile and tremble as they knelt down to kiss his hand. If he went to Dublin they would erect an obelisk on the spot where he first landed, as the Paddylanders did when Gorgius visited them.

We have all of us read with delight that story of the King's voyage to Haggisland, where his presence inspired such a fury of loyalty and where the most famous man of the country--the Baron of Bradwardine--coming on board the royal yacht, and finding a gla.s.s out of which Gorgius had drunk, put it into his coatpocket as an inestimable relic, and went ash.o.r.e in his boat again. But the Baron sat down upon the gla.s.s and broke it, and cut his coat-tails very much; and the inestimable relic was lost to the world for ever. O n.o.ble Bradwardine! what old-world superst.i.tion could set you on your knees before such an idol as that?

If you want to moralise upon the mutability of human affairs, go and see the figure of Gorgius in his real, identical robes, at the waxwork.--Admittance one shilling. Children and flunkeys sixpence. Go, and pay sixpence.