I hope
no English painter will endeavour to illustrate that scene; for who is
there to do justice to it? The history of the world contains no more
brilliant and heroic picture. No, no; the men who perform these
deeds with such brilliant valour, and describe them with such modest
manliness--SUCH are not Snobs. Their country admires them, their
Sovereign rewards them, and PUNCH, the universal railer, takes off his
hat and, says, Heaven save them!
CHAPTER XI--ON CLERICAL SNOBS
After Snobs-Military, Snobs-Clerical suggest themselves quite naturally,
and it is clear that, with every respect for the cloth, yet having a
regard for truth, humanity, and the British public, such a vast and
influential class must not be omitted from our notices of the great Snob
world.
Of these Clerics there are some whose claim to snobbishness is
undoubted, and yet it cannot be discussed here; for the same reason that
PUNCH would not set up his show in a Cathedral, out of respect for
the solemn service celebrated within. There are some places where he
acknowledges himself not privileged to make a noise, and puts away his
show, and silences his drum, and takes off his hat, and holds his peace.
And I know this, that if there are some Clerics who do wrong, there are
straightway a thousand newspapers to haul up those unfortunates, and
cry, 'Fie upon them, fie upon them!' while, though the press is always
ready to yell and bellow excommunication against these stray delinquent
parsons, it somehow takes very little count of the many good ones--of
the tens of thousands of honest men, who lead Christian lives, who give
to the poor generously, who deny themselves rigidly, and live and die
in their duty, without ever a newspaper paragraph in their favour.
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