The Book of Snobs CHAPTER XXXIV. SNOBS AND MARRIAGE
by William Makepeace Thackeray
In that noble romance called 'Ten Thousand a Year,' I
remember a profoundly pathetic description of the
Christian manner in which the hero, Mr. Aubrey, bore his
misfortunes. After making a display of the most florid
and grandiloquent resignation, and quitting his country
mansion, the writer supposes Aubrey to come to town in a
post-chaise and pair, sitting bodkin probably between his
wife and sister. It is about seven o'clock, carriages
are rattling about, knockers are thundering, and tears
bedim the fine eyes of Kate and Mrs. Aubrey as they think
that in happier times at this hour--their Aubrey used
formerly to go out to dinner to the houses of the
aristocracy his friends. This is the gist of the
passage--the elegant words I forget. But the noble,
noble sentiment I shall always cherish and remember.
What can be more sublime than the notion of a great man's
relatives in tears about ---his dinner? With a few
touches, what author ever more happily described A Snob?
We were reading the passage lately at the house of my
friend, Raymond Gray, Esquire, Barrister-at-Law, an
ingenuous youth without the least practice, but who has
luckily a great share of good spirits, which enables him
to bide his time, and bear laughingly his humble position
in the world. Meanwhile, until it is altered, the stern
laws of necessity and the expenses of the Northern
Circuit oblige Mr. Gray to live in a very tiny mansion in
a very queer small square in the airy neighbourhood of
Gray's Inn Lane.
What is the more remarkable is, that Gray has a wife
there. Mrs. Gray was a Miss Harley Baker: and I suppose
I need not say THAT is a respectable family. Allied to
the Cavendishes, the Oxfords, the Marrybones, they still,
though rather DECHUS from their original splendour, hold
their heads as high as any. Mrs. Harley Baker, I know,
never goes to church without John behind to carry her
prayer-book; nor will Miss Welbeck, her sister, walk
twenty yards a-shopping without the protection of Figby,
her sugar-loaf page; though the old lady is as ugly as
any woman in the parish and as tall and whiskery as a
grenadier. The astonishment is, how Emily Harley Baker
could have stooped to marry Raymond Gray. She, who was
the prettiest and proudest of the family; she, who
refused Sir Cockle Byles, of the Bengal Service; she, who
turned up her little nose at Essex Temple, Q.C., and
connected with the noble house of Albyn; she, who had but
4,000L. POUR TOUT POTAGE, to marry a man who had scarcely
as much more. A scream of wrath and indignation was
uttered by the whole family when they heard of this
MESALLIANCE. Mrs. Harley Baker never speaks of her
daughter now but with tears in her eyes, and as a ruined
creature. Miss Welbeck says, 'I consider that man a
villain;' and has denounced poor good-natured Mrs.
Perkins as a swindler, at whose ball the young people met
for the first time.
Mr. and Mrs. Gray, meanwhile, live in Gray's Inn Lane
aforesaid, with a maid-servant and a nurse, whose hands
are very full, and in a most provoking and unnatural
state of happiness. They have never once thought of
crying about their dinner, like the wretchedly puling and
Snobbish womankind of my favourite Snob Aubrey, of 'Ten
Thousand a Year;' but, on the contrary, accept such
humble victuals as fate awards them with a most perfect
and thankful good grace--nay, actually have a portion for
a hungry friend at times--as the present writer can
gratefully testify.
I was mentioning these dinners, and some admirable lemon
puddings which Mrs. Gray makes, to our mutual friend the
great Mr. Goldmore, the East India Director, when that
gentleman's face assumed an expression of almost
apoplectic terror, and he gasped out, 'What! Do they
give dinners?' He seemed to think it a crime and a
wonder that such people should dine at all, and that it
was their custom to huddle round their kitchen-fire over
a bone and a crust. Whenever he meets them in society,
it is a matter of wonder to him (and he always expresses
his surprise very loud) how the lady can appear decently
dressed, and the man have an unpatched coat to his back.
I have heard him enlarge upon this poverty before the
whole room at the 'Conflagrative Club,' to which he and I
and Gray have the honour to belong.
We meet at the Club on most days. At half-past four,
Goldmore arrives in St. James's Street, from the City,
and you may see him reading the evening papers in the
bow-window of the Club, which enfilades Pall Mall--a
large plethoric man, with a bunch of seals in a large
bow-windowed light waistcoat. He has large coat-tails,
stuffed with agents' letters and papers about companies
of which he is a Director. His seals jingle as he walks.
I wish I had such a man for an uncle, and that he himself
were childless. I would love and cherish him, and be
kind to him.
At six o'clock in the full season, when all the world is
in St. James's Street, and the carriages are cutting in
and out among the cabs on the stand, and the tufted
dandies are showing their listless faces out of
'White's,' and you see respectable grey-headed gentlemen
waggling their heads to each other through the plate-
glass windows of 'Arthur's:' and the red-coats wish to be
Briareian, so as to hold all the gentlemen's horses; and
that wonderful red-coated royal porter is sunning himself
before Marlborough House;--at the noon of London time,
you see a light-yellow carriage with black horses, and a
coachman in a tight floss-silk wig, and two footmen in
powder and white and yellow liveries, and a large woman
inside in shot-silk, a poodle, and a pink parasol, which
drives up to the gate of the Conflagrative, and the page
goes and says to Mr. Goldmore (who is perfectly aware of
the fact, as he is looking out of the windows with about
forty other
'Conflagrative' bucks), 'Your carriage, Sir.' G. wags
his head. 'Remember, eight o'clock precisely,' says he
to Mulligatawney, the other East India Director; and,
ascending the carriage, plumps down by the side of Mrs.
Goldmore for a drive in the Park, and then home to
Portland Place. As the carriage whirls off, all the
young bucks in the Club feel a secret elation. It is a
part of their establishment, as it were. That carriage
belongs to their Club, and their Club belongs to them.
They follow the equipage with interest; they eye it
knowingly as they see it in the Park. But halt! we are
not come to the Club Snobs yet. O my brave Snobs, what a
flurry there will be among you when those papers appear!
Well, you may judge, from the above description, what
sort of a man Goldmore is. A dull and pompous Leadenhall
Street Croesus, good-natured withal, and affable--cruelly
affable. 'Mr. Goldmore can never forget,' his lady used
to say, 'that it was Mrs. Gray's Grandfather who sent him
to India; and though that young woman has made the most
imprudent marriage in the world, and has left her station
in society, her husband seems an ingenious and laborious
young man, and we shall do everything in our power to be
of use to him.' So they used to ask the Grays to dinner
twice or thrice in a season, when, by way of increasing
the kindness, Buff, the butler, is ordered to hire a fly
to convey them to and from Portland Place.
Of course I am much too good-natured a friend of both
parties not to tell Gray of Goldmore's opinion in him,
and the nabob's astonishment at the of the briefless
barrister having any dinner at all. Indeed, Goldmore's
saying became a joke against Gray amongst us wags at the
Club, and we used to ask him when he tasted meat last?
whether we should bring him home something from dinner?
and cut a thousand other mad pranks with him in our
facetious way.
One day, then, coming home from the Club, Mr. Gray
conveyed to his wife the astounding information that he
had asked Goldmore to dinner.
'My love,' says Mrs. Gray, in a tremor, 'how could you be
so cruel? Why, the dining-room won't hold Mrs.
Goldmore.'
'Make your mind easy, Mrs. Gray; her ladyship is in
Paris. It is only Croesus that's coming, and we are
going to the play afterwards--to Sadler's Wells.
Goldmore said at the Club that he thought Shakspeare was
a great dramatic poet, and ought to be patronized;
whereupon, fired with enthusiasm, I invited him to our
banquet.'
'Goodness gracious! what CAN we give him for dinner? He
has two French cooks; you know Mrs. Goldmore is always
telling us about them; and he dines with Aldermen every
day.'
'"A plain leg of mutton, my Lucy,
I prythee get ready at three;
Have it tender, and smoking, and juicy,
And what better meat can there be?"'
says Gray, quoting my favourite poet.
'But the cook is ill; and you know that horrible Pattypan
the pastrycook's ---'
'Silence, Frau!' says Gray, in a deep tragedy voice. 'I
will have the ordering of this repast. Do all things as
I bid thee. Invite our friend Snob here to partake of
the feast. Be mine the task of procuring it.'
'Don't be expensive, Raymond,' says his wife.
'Peace, thou timid partner of the briefless one.
Goldmore's dinner shall be suited to our narrow means.
Only do thou in all things my commands.' And seeing by
the peculiar expression of the rogue's countenance, that
some mad waggery was in preparation, I awaited the morrow
with anxiety.
