One of the dullest creatures under heaven, he
goes travelling Europe under foot, shouldering his way into galleries
and cathedrals, and bustling into palaces with his buck-ram uniform.
At church or theatre, gala or picture-gallery, HIS face never varies.
A thousand delightful sights pass before his bloodshot eyes, and don't
affect him. Countless brilliant scenes of life and manners are shown
him, but never move him. He goes to church, and calls the practices
there degrading and superstitious: as if HIS altar was the only one that
was acceptable. He goes to picture-galleries, and is more ignorant about
Art than a French shoeblack. Art, Nature pass, and there is no dot of
admiration in his stupid eyes: nothing moves him, except when a very
great man comes his way, and then the rigid, proud, self-confident,
inflexible British Snob can be as humble as a flunkey and as supple as a
harlequin.
CHAPTER XXIII--ENGLISH SNOBS ON THE CONTINENT
'WHAT is the use of Lord Rome's telescope?' my friend Panwiski exclaimed
the other day. 'It only enables you to see a few hundred thousands of
miles farther. What were thought to be mere nebulae, turn out to be most
perceivable starry systems; and beyond these, you see other nebulae,
which a more powerful glass will show to be stars, again; and so they go
on glittering and winking away into eternity.
Pages:
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131