at first he is the indefatigable satirist, rejoicing in the assault. youth is almost always inclined that way—far more swift and sweeping in judgment, more severe in condemnation, than maturity or age. thackeray writes much that is merely amusing, full of high spirits and pure fun, in his first period. but his main business is to expose false pretensions, false methods, false principles in literature and life; to show up the fakers, to ridicule the humbugs, to convict the crooks of every rank and degree.
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here, for example, is a popular fashion of books with criminals and burglars for heroes and heroines, portrayed in the glamour of romance. very well, our satirist, assuming the name of “ikey solomons, esq.,” will take a real criminal, a murderess, and show us the manner of life she leads with her associates. so we have catherine. here is another fashion of weaving a fiction about a chevalier d’industrie, a bold, adventurous, conscienceless fellow who pursues his own pleasure with a swagger, and makes a brave show hide a mean and selfish heart. very well, a fellow of this kidney shall tell his own story and show himself in his habit as he lives, and as he dies in prison. so we have the memoirs of barry lyndon, esq. here are innumerable fashions of folly and falsehood current not only in high society, but also in the region of respectable mediocrity, and in the “world below-stairs.” very well, our satirist, under the name of “jeames yellowplush,” or “m. angelo titmarsh,” or “fitz-boodle,” will show them up for us. so we have various bundles of short stories, and skits, and sketches of travel, some of them bubbling over with fun, some
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of them, like dennis haggarty’s wife, touched with quiet pathos.
the culmination of this satiric period is the book of snobs, which appeared serially in the london punch, 1845-46. in order to understand the quality and meaning of thackeray’s satire—an element which stayed with him all through his writing, though it was later subdued to its proper place—we must take the necessary pains to know just what he meant by a “snob.”
a snob is an unreal person who tries to pass himself off for a real person; a pretender who meanly admires and imitates mean things; an ape of gentility. he is a specific variety of the great genus “sham.” carlyle, the other notable english satirist of the nineteenth century, attacked the whole genus with heavy artillery. thackeray, with his light cavalry of ridicule, assailed the species.
all snobs are shams, but not all shams are snobs. the specific qualities of the snob are developed only in countries where there are social classes and distinctions, but no insuperable barriers between them. thus in native india with its immutable caste, or
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in central africa with its general barbarism, i fancy it must be difficult to discover snobbism. (yet i have seen traces of it even among dogs and cats.) but in a country like england or the united states of america, where society is arranged in different stories, with staircases between, snobbism is frequent and flourishing.
the snob is the man who tries to sneak up-stairs. he is the surreptitious climber, the person who is ashamed to pass for what he is.
has he been at an expensive college? he goes home and snubs his old friends with allusions to the distinguished society he has been keeping. is he entertaining fashionable strangers? he gives them elaborate and costly fare at the most aurivorous hotel, but at home his wife and daughters may starve. he talks about books that he has never read, and pretends to like music that sends him to sleep. at his worst, he says his prayers on the street-corners and reviles his neighbour for sins which he himself cherishes in secret.
that is the snob: the particular species of sham whom thackeray pursues and satirizes through all
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his disguises and metamorphoses. he does it unsparingly, yet never—or at least hardly ever—savagely. there is always a strain of good humour in it, and often a touch of fellow-feeling for the man himself, camouflaged under his affectations. it may not be worth while—this kind of work. all satire is perishable. it has no more of the immortal in it than the unreality which it aims to destroy. but some shams die hard. and while they live and propagate, the arrows which hit them fairly are not out of date.
stevenson makes a curious misjudgment of this part of thackeray’s work, when he says in his essay on “some gentlemen in fiction”:
“personally [thackeray] scarce appeals to us as the ideal gentleman; if there were nothing else, perpetual nosing after snobbery at least suggests the snob.”
most true, beloved r. l. s., but did you forget that this is precisely what thackeray himself says? he tells us not to be too quick or absolute in our judgments; to acknowledge that we have some faults and failings of our own; to remember that
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other people have sometimes hinted at a vein, a trace, a vestige of snobbery in ourselves. search for truth and speak it; but, above all, no arrogance—faut pas monter sur ses grands chevaux. have you ever read the end of the lecture on “charity and humour”?
“the author ... has been described by the london times newspaper as a writer of considerable parts, but a dreary misanthrope, who sees no good anywhere, who sees the sky above him green, i think, instead of blue, and only miserable sinners around him. so we are, as is every writer and reader i have heard of; so was every being who ever trod this earth, save one. i cannot help telling the truth as i view it, and describing what i see. to describe it otherwise than it seems to me would be falsehood in that calling in which it has pleased heaven to place me; treason to that conscience which says that men are weak; that truth must be told; that faults must be owned; that pardon must be prayed for; and that love reigns supreme over all.”
