William Makepeace Thackeray

The Book of Snobs William Makepeace Thackeray

There are relative and positive Snobs. I mean by positive, such persons as are Snobs everywhere, in all companies, from morning till night, from youth to the grave, being by Nature endowed with Snobbishness-and others who are Snobs only in certain circumstances and relations of life. For instance: I once knew a man who committed before me an act as atrocious as that which I have indicated in the last chapter as performed by me for the purpose of disgusting Colonel Snobley; viz, the using the fork in the guise of a toothpick. I once, I say, knew a man who, dining in my company at the 'Europa Coffee-house, ' (opposite the Grand Opera, and, as everybody knows, the only decent place for dining at Naples, ) ate peas with the assistance of his knife. He was a person with whose society I was greatly pleased at first-indeed, we had met in the crater of Mount Vesuvius, and were subsequently robbed and held to ransom by brigands in Calabria, which is nothing to the purpose-a man of great powers, excellent heart, and varied information; but I had never before seen him with a dish of pease, and his conduct in regard to them caused me the deepest pain. After having seen him thus publicly comport himself, but one course was open to me-to cut his acquaintance. I commissioned a mutual friend (the Honourable Poly Anthus) to break the matter to this gentleman as delicately as possible, and to say that painful circumstances-in nowise affecting Mr. Marrowfat's honour, or my esteem for him-had occurred, which obliged me to forego my intimacy with him; and accordingly we met and gave each other the cut direct that night at the Duchess of Monte Fiasco's ball. Everybody at Naples remarked the separation of the Damon and Pythias-indeed, Marrowfat had saved my life more than once-but, as an English gentleman, what was I to d