The Book of Snobs Part 14

Seedy's income? Will Mrs. Seedy who is starving in her great house, go and live comfortably in a little one, or in lodgings? Will her landlady, Miss Letsam, ever stop wondering at the familiarity of tradespeople, or rebuking the insolence of Suky, the maid, who wears flowers under her bonnet like a lady?

But why hope, why wish for such times? Do I wish all Sn.o.bs to perish? Do I wish these Sn.o.b papers to determine? Suicidal fool, art not thou, too, a Sn.o.b and a brother?

CHAPTER x.x.xVII--CLUB Sn.o.bS

As I wish to be particularly agreeable to the ladies (to whom I make my most humble obeisance), we will now, if you please, commence maligning a cla.s.s of Sn.o.bs against whom, I believe, most female minds are embittered--I mean Club Sn.o.bs. I have very seldom heard even the most gentle and placable woman speak without a little feeling of bitterness against those social inst.i.tutions, those palaces swaggering in St.

James's, which are open to the men; while the ladies have but their dingy three-windowed brick boxes in Belgravia or in Paddingtonia, or in the region between the road of Edgware and that of Gray's Inn.

In my grandfather's time it used to be Freemasonry that roused their anger. It was my grand-aunt (whose portrait we still have in the family) who got into the clock-case at the Royal Rosicrucian Lodge at Bungay, Suffolk, to spy the proceedings of the Society, of which her husband was a member, and being frightened by the sudden whirring and striking eleven of the clock (just as the Deputy-Grand-Master was bringing in the mystic gridiron for the reception of a neophyte), rushed out into the midst of the lodge a.s.sembled; and was elected, by a desperate unanimity, Deputy-Grand-Mistress for life. Though that admirable and courageous female never subsequently breathed a word with regard to the secrets of the initiation, yet she inspired all our family with such a terror regarding the mysteries of Jachin and Boaz, that none of our family have ever since joined the Society, or worn the dreadful Masonic insignia.

It is known that Orpheus was torn to pieces by some justly indignant Thracian ladies for belonging to an Harmonic Lodge. 'Let him go back to Eurydice,' they said, 'whom he is pretending to regret so.' But the history is given in Dr. Lempriere's elegant dictionary in a manner much more forcible than any this feeble pen can attempt. At once, then, and without verbiage, let us take up this subject-matter of Clubs.

Clubs ought not, in my mind, to be permitted to bachelors. If my friend of the Cuttykilts had not our club, the 'Union Jack,' to go to (I belong to the 'U.J. and nine other similar inst.i.tutions), who knows but he never would be a bachelor at this present moment? Instead of being made comfortable, and c.o.c.kered up with every luxury, as they are at Clubs, bachelors ought to be rendered profoundly miserable, in my opinion.

Every encouragement should be given to the rendering their spare time disagreeable. There can be no more odious object, according to my sentiments, than young Smith in the pride of health, commanding his dinner of three courses; than middle-aged Jones wallowing (as I may say) in an easy padded arm-chair, over the delicious novel or brilliant magazine; or than old Brown, that selfish old reprobate for whom mere literature has no charms, stretched on the best sofa, sitting on the second edition of THE TIMES, having the MORNING CHRONICLE between his knees, the HERALD pushed in between his coat and waistcoat, the STANDARD under his arm, the GLOBE under the other pinion, and the DAILY NEWS in perusal. 'I'll trouble you for PUNCH, Mr. Wiggins' says the unconscionable old gormandiser, interrupting our friend, who is laughing over the periodical in question.

This kind of selfishness ought not to be. No, no. Young Smith, instead of his dinner and his wine, ought to be, where?--at the festive tea-table, to be sure, by the side of Miss Higgs, sipping the bohea, or tasting the harmless m.u.f.fin; while old Mrs. Higgs looks on, pleased at their innocent dalliance, and my friend Miss Wirt, the governess, is performing Thalberg's last sonata in treble X., totally unheeded, at the piano.

Where should the middle-aged Jones be? At his time of life, he ought to be the father of a family. At such an hour--say, at nine o'clock at night--the nursery-bell should have just rung the children to bed. He and Mrs. J. ought to be, by rights, seated on each side of the fire by the dining-room table, a bottle of port-wine between them, not so full as it was an hour since. Mrs. J. has had two gla.s.ses; Mrs. Grumble (Jones's mother-in-law) has had three; Jones himself has finished the rest, and dozes comfortably until bed-time.

And Brown, that old newspaper-devouring miscreant, what right has HE at a club at a decent hour of night? He ought to be playing his rubber with Miss MacWhirter, his wife, and the family apothecary. His candle ought to be brought to him at ten o'clock, and he should retire to rest just as the young people were thinking of a dance. How much finer, simpler, n.o.bler are the several employments I have sketched out for these gentlemen than their present nightly orgies at the horrid Club.

And, ladies, think of men who do not merely frequent the dining-room and library, but who use other apartments of those horrible dens which it is my purpose to batter down; think of Cannon, the wretch, with his coat off, at his age and size, clattering the b.a.l.l.s over the billiard-table all night, and making bets with that odious Captain Spot!--think of Pam in a dark room with Bob Trumper, Jack Deuceace, and Charley Vole, playing, the poor dear misguided wretch, guinea points and five pounds on the rubber!--above all, think--oh, think of that den of abomination, which, I am told, has been established in SOME clubs, called THE SMOKING-ROOM,--think of the debauchees who congregate there, the quant.i.ties of reeking whisky-punch or more dangerous sherry-cobbler which they consume;--think of them coming home at c.o.c.k-crow and letting themselves into the quiet house with the Chubb key;--think of them, the hypocrites, taking off their insidious boots before they slink upstairs, the children sleeping overhead, the wife of their bosom alone with the waning rushlight in the two-pair front--that chamber so soon to be rendered hateful by the smell of their stale cigars: I am not an advocate of violence; I am not, by nature, of an incendiary turn of mind: but if, my dear ladies, you are for a.s.sa.s.sinating Mr. Chubb and burning down Club-houses in St. James's, there is ONE Sn.o.b at who will not think the worse of you.

The only men who, as I opine, ought to be allowed the use of Clubs, are married men without a profession. The continual presence of these in a house cannot be thought, even by the most loving of wives, desirable.

Say the girls are beginning to practise their music, which in an honourable English family, ought to occupy every young gentlewoman three hours; it would be rather hard to call upon poor papa to sit in the drawing-room all that time, and listen to the interminable discords and shrieks which are elicited from the miserable piano during the above necessary operation. A man with a good ear, especially, would go mad, if compelled daily to submit to this horror.

Or suppose you have a fancy to go to the milliner's, or to Howell and James's, it is manifest, my dear Madam, that your husband is much better at the Club during these operations than by your side in the carriage, or perched in wonder upon one of the stools at Shawl and Gimcrack's, whilst young counter-dandies are displaying their wares.

This sort of husbands should be sent out after breakfast, and if not Members of Parliament, or Directors of a Railroad, or an Insurance Company, should be put into their clubs, and told to remain there until dinner-time. No sight is more agreeable to my truly regulated mind than to see the n.o.ble characters so worthily employed. Whenever I pa.s.s by St. James's Street, having the privilege, like the rest of the world, of looking in at the windows of 'Blight's,' or 'Foodle's,' or 'Snook's,'

or the great bay at the 'Contemplative Club,' I behold with respectful appreciation the figures within--the honest rosy old fogies, the mouldy old dandies, the waist-belts and glossy wigs and tight cravats of those most vacuous and respectable men. Such men are best there during the day-time surely. When you part with them, dear ladies, think of the rapture consequent on their return. You have transacted your household affairs; you have made your purchases; you have paid your visits; you have aired your poodle in the Park; your French maid has completed the toilette which renders you so ravis.h.i.+ngly beautiful by candlelight, and you are fit to make home pleasant to him who has been absent all day.

Such men surely ought to have their Clubs, and we will not cla.s.s them among Club Sn.o.bs therefore:--on whom let us reserve our attack for the next chapter.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII--CLUB Sn.o.bS

Such a Sensation has been created in the Clubs by the appearance of the last paper on Club Sn.o.bs, as can't but be complimentary to me who am one of their number.

I belong to many Clubs. The 'Union Jack,' the 'Sash and Marlin-spike'--Military Clubs. 'The True Blue,' the 'No Surrender,'

the 'Blue and Buff,' the 'Guy Fawkes,' and the 'Cato Street'--Political Clubs. 'The Brummel' and the 'Regent'--Dandy Clubs. The 'Acropolis,' the 'Palladium,' the 'Areopagus,' the 'Pnyx' the 'Pentelicus,' the 'Ilissus'

and the 'Poluphloisboio Thala.s.ses'--Literary Clubs. I never could make out how the latter set of Clubs got their names; I don't know Greek for one, and I wonder how many other members of those inst.i.tutions do? Ever since the Club Sn.o.bs have been announced, I observe a sensation created on my entrance into any one of these places. Members get up and hustle together; they nod, they scowl, as they glance towards the present Sn.o.b.

'Infernal impudent jackanapes! If he shows me up,' says Colonel Bludyer, 'I'll break every bone in his skin.' 'I told you what would come of admitting literary men into the Club,' says Ranville Ranville to his colleague, Spooney, of the Tape and Sealing-Wax Office. 'These people are very well in their proper places, and as a public man, I make a point of shaking hands with them, and that sort of thing; but to have one's privacy obtruded upon by such people is really too much. Come along, Spooney,' and the pair of prigs retire superciliously.

As I came into the coffee-room at the 'No Surrender,' old Jawkins was holding out to a knot of men, who were yawning, as usual. There he stood, waving the STANDARD, and swaggering before the fire. 'What,' says he, 'did I tell Peel last year? If you touch the Corn Laws, you touch the Sugar Question; if you touch the Sugar, you touch the Tea. I am no monopolist. I am a liberal man, but I cannot forget that I stand on the brink of a precipice; and if were to have Free Trade, give me reciprocity. And what was Sir Robert Peel's answer to me? "Mr. Jawkins,"

he said--'

Here Jawkins's eye suddenly turning on your humble servant, he stopped his sentence, with a guilty look--his stale old stupid sentence, which every one of us at the Club has heard over and over again.

Jawkins is a most pertinacious Club Sn.o.b. Every day he is at that fireplace, holding that STANDARD, of which he reads up the leading-article, and pours it out ORE ROTUNDO, with the most astonis.h.i.+ng composure, in the face of his neighbour, who has just read every word of it in the paper. Jawkins has money, as you may see by the tie of his neckcloth. He pa.s.ses the morning swaggering about the City, in bankers'

and brokers parlours, and says:--'I spoke with Peel yesterday, and his intentions are so and so. Graham and I were talking over the matter, and I pledge you my word of honour, his opinion coincides with mine; and that What-d'ye-call-um is the only measure Government will venture on trying.' By evening-paper time he is at the Club: 'I can tell you the opinion of the City, my lord,' says he, 'and the way in which Jones Loyd looks at it is briefly this: Rothschilds told me so themselves. In Mark Lane, people's minds are QUITE made up.' He is considered rather a well-informed man.

He lives in Belgravia, of course; in a drab-coloured genteel house, and has everything about him that is properly grave, dismal, and comfortable. His dinners are in the MORNING HERALD, among the parties for the week; and his wife and daughters make a very handsome appearance at the Drawing-Room, once a year, when he comes down to the Club in his Deputy-Lieutenant's uniform.

He is fond of beginning a speech to you by saying, 'When I was in the House, I &c.'--in fact he sat for Skittlebury for three weeks in the first Reformed Parliament, and was unseated for bribery; since which he has three times unsuccessfully contested that honourable borough.

Another sort of Political Sn.o.b I have seen at most Clubs and that is the man who does not care so much for home politics, but is great upon foreign affairs. I think this sort of man is scarcely found anywhere BUT in Clubs. It is for him the papers provide their foreign articles, at the expense of some ten thousand a-year each. He is the man who is really seriously uncomfortable about the designs of Russia, and the atrocious treachery of Louis Philippe. He it is who expects a French fleet in the Thames, and has a constant eye upon the American President, every word of whose speech (goodness help him!) he reads. He knows the names of the contending leaders in Portugal, and what they are fighting about: and it is he who says that Lord Aberdeen ought to be impeached, and Lord Palmerston hanged, or VICE VERSA.

Lord Palmerston's being sold to Russia, the exact number of roubles paid, by what house in the City, is a favourite theme with this kind of Sn.o.b. I once overheard him--it was Captain Spitfire, R.N., (who had been refused a s.h.i.+p by the Whigs, by the way)--indulging in the following conversation with Mr. Minns after dinner.

Why wasn't the Princess Scragamoffsky at Lady Palmerston's party, Minns?

Because SHE CAN'T SHOW--why can't she show? Shall I tell you, Minns, why she can't show? The Princess Scragainoffsky's back is flayed alive, Minns--I tell you it's raw, sir! On Tuesday last, at twelve o'clock, three drummers of the Preobajinski Regiment arrived at Ashburnham House, and at half-past twelve, in the yellow drawing-room at the Russian Emba.s.sy, before the amba.s.sadress and four ladies'-maids, the Greek Papa, and the Secretary of Emba.s.sy, Madame de Scragamoffsky received thirteen dozen. She was knouted, sir, knouted in the midst of England--in Berkeley Square, for having said that the Grand d.u.c.h.ess Olga's hair was red. And now, sir, will you tell me Lord Palmerston ought to continue Minister?'

Minns: 'Good Ged!'

Minns follows Spitfire about, and thinks him the greatest and wisest of human beings.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX--CLUB Sn.o.bS

Why does not some great author write 'The Mysteries of the Club-houses; or St. James's Street unveiled?' It would be a fine subject for an imaginative writer. We must all, as boys, remember when we went to the fair, and had spent all our money--the sort of awe and anxiety with which we loitered round the outside of the show, speculating upon the nature of the entertainment going on within.

Man is a Drama--of Wonder and Pa.s.sion, and Mystery and Meanness, and Beauty and Truthfulness, and Etcetera. Each Bosom is a Booth in Vanity Fair. But let us stop this capital style, I should die if I kept it up for a column (a pretty thing a column all capitals would be, by the way). In a Club, though there mayn't be a soul of your acquaintance in the room, you have always the chance of watching strangers, and speculating on what is going on within those tents and curtains of their souls, their coats and waistcoats. This is a never-failing sport. Indeed I am told there are some Clubs in the town where n.o.body ever speaks to anybody. They sit in the coffee-room, quite silent, and watching each other.

Yet how little you can tell from a man's outward demeanour! There's a man at our Club--large, heavy, middle-aged--gorgeously dressed--rather bald--with lacquered boots--and a boa when he goes out; quiet in demeanour, always ordering and consuming a RECHERCHE little dinner: whom I have mistaken for Sir John Pocklington any time these five years, and respected as a man with five hundred pounds PER DIEM; and I find he is but a clerk in an office in the City, with not two hundred pounds income, and his name is Jubber. Sir John Pocklington was, on the contrary, the dirty little snuffy man who cried out so about the bad quality of the beer, and grumbled at being overcharged three-halfpence for a herring, seated at the next table to Jubber on the day when some one pointed the Baronet out to me.

Take a different sort of mystery. I see, for instance, old Fawney stealing round the rooms of the Club, with gla.s.sy, meaningless eyes, and an endless greasy simper--he fawns on everybody he meets, and shakes hands with you, and blesses you, and betrays the most tender and astonis.h.i.+ng interest in your welfare. You know him to be a quack and a rogue, and he knows you know it. But he wriggles on his way, and leaves a track of slimy flattery after him wherever he goes. Who can penetrate that man's mystery? What earthly good can he get from you or me? You don't know what is working under that leering tranquil mask. You have only the dim instinctive repulsion that warns you, you are in the presence of a knave--beyond which fact all Fawney's soul is a secret to you.

I think I like to speculate on the young men best. Their play is opener.

You know the cards in their hand, as it were. Take, for example, Messrs.

Spavin and c.o.c.kspur.

A specimen or two of the above sort of young fellows may be found, I believe, at most Clubs. They know n.o.body. They bring a fine smell of cigars into the room with them, and they growl together, in a corner, about sporting matters. They recollect the history of that short period in which they have been ornaments of the world by the names of winning horses. As political men talk about 'the Reform year,' 'the year the Whigs went out,' and so forth, these young sporting bucks speak of TARNATION'S year, or OPODELDOC'S year, or the year when CATAWAMPUS ran second for the Chester Cup. They play at billiards in the morning, they absorb pale ale for breakfast, and 'top up' with gla.s.ses of strong waters. They read BELL'S LIFE (and a very pleasant paper too, with a great deal of erudition in the answers to correspondents). They go down to Tattersall's, and swagger in the Park, with their hands plunged in the pockets of their paletots.

What strikes me especially in the outward demeanour of sporting youth is their amazing gravity, their conciseness of speech, and careworn and moody air. In the smoking-room at the 'Regent,' when Joe Millerson will be setting the whole room in a roar with laughter, you hear young Messrs. Spavin and c.o.c.kspur grumbling together in a corner. 'I'll take your five-and-twenty to one about Brother to Bluenose,' whispers Spavin.

'Can't do it at the price,' c.o.c.kspur says, wagging his head ominously.

The betting-book is always present in the minds of those unfortunate youngsters. I think I hate that work even more than the 'Peerage.' There is some good in the latter--though, generally speaking, a vain record: though De Mogyns is not descended from the giant Hogyn Mogyn; though half the other genealogies are equally false and foolish; yet the mottoes are good reading--some of them; and the book itself a sort of gold-laced and livened lackey to History, and in so far serviceable. But what good ever came out of, or went into, a betting-book? If I could be Caliph Omar for a week, I would pitch every one of those despicable ma.n.u.scripts into the flames; from my Lord's, who is 'in' with Jack Snaffle's stable, and is over-reaching worse-informed rogues and swindling greenhorns, down to Sam's, the butcher-boy's, who books eighteenpenny odds in the tap-room, and 'stands to win five-and-twenty bob.'

In a turf transaction, either Spavin or c.o.c.kspur would try to get the better of his father, and, to gain a point in the odds, victimise his best friends. One day we shall hear of one or other levanting; an event at which, not being sporting men, we shall not break our hearts.

See--Mr. Spavin is settling his toilette previous to departure; giving a curl in the gla.s.s to his side-wisps of hair. Look at him! It is only at the hulks, or among turf-men, that you ever see a face so mean, so knowing, and so gloomy.

A much more humane being among the youthful Clubbists is the Lady-killing Sn.o.b. I saw Wiggle just now in the dressing-room, talking to Waggle, his inseparable.

WAGGLE.--'Pon my honour, Wiggle, she did.'

WIGGLE.--'Well, Waggle, as you say--I own I think she DID look at me rather kindly. We'll see to-night at the French play.'