SNOBS AND MARRIAGE
In that noble romance called 'Ten Thousand a Year,' Iremember 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 Iand Gray have the honour to belong.
