第35章

PARTY-GIVING SNOBS

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 MORNINGHERALD; 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 ETQUARANTE 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.