



Produced by Sean Hackett





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 bl