" It was a deep-seated fault,
and emerged in a form which is not uncommon among people of that
type--namely, a tendency to make friends with people of rank,
coupled with a constant desire to detect snobbishness in other
people. There is no surer sign of innate vulgarity than that; it
proceeds, as a rule, from a dim consciousness of the fault,
combined with the natural shame of a high-minded nature for being
subject to it. In this particular case the man in question
sincerely desired to resist the fault, but he could not avoid
making himself slightly more deferential, and consequently slightly
more agreeable, to persons of position. If he had not suffered from
the fault, he would never have given the matter a thought at all.
The other partner in the friendly enterprise had a touch of a
different kind of snobbishness--the middle-class professional
snobbishness, which pays an undue regard to success, and gravitates
to effective and distinguished people. As the friendship matured,
each became unpleasantly conscious of the other's defect, while
remaining unconscious of his own.
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