I am like the Pasha of three tails, to whom the Sultan sends HIS COURT
CIRCULAR, the bowstring.
It CHOKES me. May its usage be abolished for ever.
CHAPTER V--WHAT SNOBS ADMIRE
Now let us consider how difficult it is even for great men to escape
from being Snobs. It is very well for the reader, whose fine feelings
are disgusted by the assertion that Kings, Princes, Lords, are Snobs, to
say 'You are confessedly a Snob yourself. In professing to depict Snobs,
it is only your own ugly mug which you are copying with a Narcissus-like
conceit and fatuity.' But I shall pardon this explosion of ill-temper
on the part of my constant reader, reflecting upon the misfortune of his
birth and country. It is impossible for ANY Briton, perhaps, not to be a
Snob in some degree. If people can be convinced of this fact, an immense
point is gained, surely. If I have pointed out the disease, let us hope
that other scientific characters may discover the remedy.
If you, who are a person of the middle ranks of life, are a Snob,--you
whom nobody flatters particularly; you who have no toadies; you whom no
cringing flunkeys or shopmen bow out of doors; you whom the policeman
tells to move on; you who are jostled in the crowd of this world, and
amongst the Snobs our brethren: consider how much harder it is for a man
to escape who has not your advantages, and is all his life long subject
to adulation; the butt of meanness; consider how difficult it is for the
Snobs' idol not to be a Snob.
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