ON LITERARY SNOBS
What will he say about Literary Snobs? has been a question, I make no doubt, often asked by the public.
How can he let off his own profession? Will that truculent and unsparing monster who attacks the nobility, the clergy, the army, and the ladies, indiscriminately, hesitate when the turn comes to EGORGER his own flesh and blood?
My dear and excellent querist, whom does the schoolmaster flog so resolutely as his own son? Didn't Brutus chop his offspring's head off? You have a very bad opinion indeed of the present state of literature and of literary men, if you fancy that any one of us would hesitate to stick a knife into his neighbour penman, if the latter's death could do the State any service.
But the fact is, that in the literary profession THEREARE NO SNOBS.Look round at the whole body of British men of letters; and I defy you to point out among them a single instance of vulgarity, or envy, or assumption.
Men and women, as far as I have known them, they are all modest in their demeanour, elegant in their manners, spotless in their lives, and honourable in their conduct to the world and to each other.You MAY, occasionally, it is true, hear one literary man abusing his brother;but why? Not in the least out of malice; not at all from envy; merely from a sense of truth and public duty.
Suppose, for instance, I, good-naturedly point out a blemish in my friend MR.PUNCH'S person, and say, MR.P.
has a hump-back, and his nose and chin are more crooked than those features in the Apollo or Antinous, which we are accustomed to consider as our standards of beauty;does this argue malice on my part towards MR.PUNCH? Not in the least.It is the critic's duty to point out defects as well as merits, and he invariably does his duty with utmost gentleness and candour.
An intelligent foreigner's testimony about our manners is always worth having, and I think, in this respect the work of an eminent American, Mr.N.P.Willis is eminently valuable and impartial.In his 'History of Ernest Clay,' a crack magazine-writer, the reader will get an exact account of the life of a popular man of letters in England.He is always the lion of society.
He takes the PAS of dukes and earls; all the nobility crowd to see him: I forget how many baronesses and duchesses fall in love with him.But on this subject let us hold our tongues.Modesty forbids that we should reveal the names of the heart-broken countesses and dear marchionesses who are pining for every one of the contributors in PUNCH.
If anybody wants to know how intimately authors are connected with the fashionable world, they have but to read the genteel novels.What refinement and delicacy pervades the works of Mrs.Barnaby! What delightful good company do you meet with in Mrs.Armytage! She seldom introduces you to anybody under a marquis! Idon't know anything more delicious than the pictures of genteel life in 'Ten Thousand a Year,' except perhaps the 'Young Duke,' and 'Coningsby.' There's a modest grace about THEM, and an air of easy high fashion, which only belongs to blood, my dear Sir--to true blood.
And what linguists many of our writers are! Lady Bulwer, Lady Londonderry, Sir Edward himself--they write the French language with a luxurious elegance and ease which sets them far above their continental rivals, of whom not one (except Paul de Kock) knows a word of English.
