Now that September has come, and all our Parliamentary duties are over, perhaps no class of Snobs2 are in such high feather as the Continental3 Snobs. I watch these daily as they commence their migrations4 from the beach at Folkestone. I see shoals of them depart (not perhaps without an innate5 longing6 too to quit the Island along with those happy Snobs). Farewell, dear friends, I say: you little know that the individual who regards you from the beach is your friend and historiographer and brother.
I went today to see our excellent friend Snooks, on board the ‘Queen of the French;’ many scores of Snobs were there, on the deck of that fine ship, marching forth7 in their pride and bravery. They will be at Ostend in four hours; they will inundate8 the Continent next week; they will carry into far lands the famous image of the British Snob1. I shall not see them — but am with them in spirit: and indeed there is hardly a country in the known and civilized9 world in which these eyes have not beheld10 them.
I have seen Snobs, in pink coats and hunting-boots, scouring11 over the Campagna of Rome; and have heard their oaths and their well-known slang in the galleries of the Vatican, and under the shadowy arches of the Colosseum. I have met a Snob on a dromedary in the desert, and picnicking under the Pyramid of Cheops. I like to think how many gallant12 British Snobs there are, at this minute of writing, pushing their heads out of every window in the courtyard of ‘Meurice’s’ in the Rue13 de Rivoli; or roaring out, ‘Garsong, du pang,’ ‘Garsong, du Yang;’ or swaggering down the Toledo at Naples; or even how many will be on the look-out for Snooks on Ostend Pier14,— for Snooks, and the rest of the Snobs on board the ‘Queen of the French.’
Look at the Marquis of Carabas and his two carriages. My Lady Marchioness comes on board, looks round with that happy air of mingled16 terror and impertinence which distinguishes her ladyship, and rushes to her carriage, for it is impossible that she should mingle15 with the other Snobs on deck. There she sits, and will be ill in private. The strawberry leaves on her chariot-panels are engraved17 on her ladyship’s heart. If she were going to heaven instead of to Ostend, I rather think she would expect to have DES PLACES RESERVEES for her, and would send to order the best rooms. A courier, with his money-bag of office round his shoulders — a huge scowling18 footman, whose dark pepper-and-salt livery glistens19 with the heraldic insignia of the Carabases — a brazen-looking, tawdry French FEMME-DE-CHAMBRE (none but a female pen can do justice to that wonderful tawdry toilette of the lady’s-maid EN VOYAGE)— and a miserable21 DAME22 DE COMPAGNIE, are ministering to the wants of her ladyship and her King Charles’s spaniel. They are rushing to and fro with eau-de-Cologne, pocket-handkerchiefs, which are all fringe and cipher23, and popping mysterious cushions behind and before, and in every available corner of the carriage.
The little Marquis, her husband is walking about the deck in a bewildered manner, with a lean daughter on each arm: the carroty-tufted hope of the family is already smoking on the foredeck in a travelling costume checked all over, and in little lacquer-tip pod jean boots, and a shirt embroidered24 with pink boa-constrictors. ‘What is it that gives travelling Snobs such a marvellous propensity25 to rush into a costume? Why should a man not travel in a coat, &c.? but think proper to dress himself like a harlequin in mourning? See, even young Aldermanbury, the tallow-merchant, who has just stepped on board, has got a travelling-dress gaping26 all over with pockets; and little Tom Tapeworm, the lawyer’s clerk out of the City, who has but three weeks’ leave, turns out in gaiters and a bran-new shooting-jacket, and must let the moustaches grow on his little sniffy upper lip, forsooth!
Pompey Hicks is giving elaborate directions to his servant, and asking loudly, ‘Davis, where’s the dwessing-case?’ and ‘Davis, you’d best take the pistol-case into the cabin.’ Little Pompey travels with a dressing-case, and without a beard: whom he is going to shoot with his pistols, who on earth can tell? and what he is to do with his servant but wait upon him, I am at a loss to conjecture28.
Look at honest Nathan Houndsditch and his lady, and their little son. What a noble air of blazing contentment illuminates29 the features of those Snobs of Eastern race! What a toilette Houndsditch’s is! What rings and chains, what gold-headed canes31 and diamonds, what a tuft the rogue32 has got to his chin (the rogue! he will never spare himself any cheap enjoyment33!) Little Houndsditch has a little cane30 with a gilt34 head and little mosaic35 ornaments36 — altogether an extra air. As for the lady, she is all the colours of the rainbow! she has a pink parasol, with a white lining37, and a yellow bonnet38, and an emerald green shawl, and a shot-silk pelisse; and drab boots and rhubarb-coloured gloves; and parti-coloured glass buttons, expanding from the size of a fourpenny-piece to a crown, glitter and twiddle all down the front of her gorgeous costume. I have said before, I like to look at ‘the Peoples’ on their gala days, they are so picturesquely39 and outrageously40 splendid and happy.
Yonder comes Captain Bull; spick and span, tight and trim; who travels for four or six months every year of his life; who does not commit himself by luxury of raiment or insolence41 of demeanour, but I think is as great a Snob as any man on board. Bull passes the season in London, sponging for dinners, and sleeping in a garret near his Club. Abroad, he has been everywhere; he knows the best wine at every inn in every capital in Europe; lives with the best English company there; has seen every palace and picture-gallery from Madrid to Stockholm; speaks an abominable42 little jargon43 of half-a-dozen languages — and knows nothing — nothing. Bull hunts tufts on the Continent, and is a sort of amateur courier. He will scrape acquaintance with old Carabas before they make Ostend; and will remind his lordship that he met him at Vienna twenty years ago, or gave him a glass of Schnapps up the Righi. We have said Bull knows nothing: he knows the birth, arms, and pedigree of all the peerage, has poked44 his little eyes into every one of the carriages on board — their panels noted45 and their crests46 surveyed; he knows all the Continental stories of English scandal — how Count Towrowski ran off with Miss Baggs at Naples — how VERY thick Lady Smigsmag was with young Cornichon of the French Legation at Florence — the exact amount which Jack27 Deuceace won of Bob Greengoose at Baden — what it is that made the Staggs settle on the Continent: the sum for which the O’Goggarty estates are mortgaged, &c. If he can’t catch a lord he will hook on to a baronet, or else the old wretch47 will catch hold of some beardless young stripling of fashion, and show him ‘life’ in various and amiable48 and inaccessible49 quarters. Faugh! the old brute50! If he has every one of the vices51 of the most boisterous52 youth, at least he is comforted by having no conscience. He is utterly53 stupid, but of a jovial54 turn, He believes himself to be quite a respectable member of society: but perhaps the only good action he ever did in his life is the involuntary one of giving an example to be avoided, and showing what an odious55 thing in the social picture is that figure of the debauched old man who passes through life rather a decorous Silenus, and dies some day in his garret, alone, unrepenting, and unnoted, save by his astonished heirs, who find that the dissolute old miser20 has left money behind him. See! he is up to old Carabas already! I told you he would.
Yonder you see the old Lady Mary MacScrew, and those middle-aged56 young women her daughters; they are going to cheapen and haggle57 in Belgium and up the Rhine until they meet with a boarding-house where they can live upon less board-wages than her ladyship pays her footmen. But she will exact and receive considerable respect from the British Snobs located in the watering place which she selects for her summer residence, being the daughter of the Earl of Haggistoun. That broad-shouldered buck58, with the great whiskers and the cleaned white kid-gloves, is Mr. Phelim Clancy of Poldoodystown: he calls himself Mr. De Clancy; he endeavours to disguise his native brogue with the richest superposition of English; and if you play at billiards59 or ECARTE with him, the chances are that you will win the first game, and he the seven or eight games ensuing.
That overgrown lady with the four daughters, and the young dandy from the University, her son, is Mrs. Kewsy, the eminent60 barrister’s lady, who would rather die than not be in the fashion. She has the ‘Peerage’ in her carpet-bag, you may be sure; but she is altogether cut out by Mrs. Quod, the attorney’s wife, whose carriage, with the apparatus61 of rumbles62, dickeys, and imperials, scarcely yields in splendour to the Marquis of Carabas’s own travelling-chariot, and whose courier has even bigger whiskers and a larger morocco money-bag than the Marquis’s own travelling gentleman. Remark her well: she is talking to Mr. Spout63, the new Member for Jawborough, who is going out to inspect the operations of the Zollverein, and will put some very severe questions to Lord Palmerston next session upon England and her relations with the Prussian-blue trade, the Naples-soap trade, the German-tinder trade, &c. Spout will patronize King Leopold at Brussels; will write letters from abroad to the JAWBOROUGH INDEPENDENT; and in his quality of MEMBER DU PARLIAMONG BRITANNIQUE, will expect to be invited to a family dinner with every sovereign whose dominions64 he honours with a visit during his tour.
The next person is — but hark! the bell for shore is ringing, and, shaking Snook’s hand cordially, we rush on to the pier, waving him a farewell as the noble black ship cuts keenly through the sunny azure65 waters, bearing away that cargo66 of Snobs outward bound.
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snob
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| n.势利小人，自以为高雅、有学问的人 | |
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snobs
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| （谄上傲下的）势利小人( snob的名词复数 )； 自高自大者，自命不凡者 | |
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continental
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| adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的 | |
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migrations
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| n.迁移，移居( migration的名词复数 ) | |
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innate
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| adj.天生的，固有的，天赋的 | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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inundate
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| vt.淹没，泛滥，压倒 | |
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civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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scouring
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| 擦[洗]净，冲刷，洗涤 | |
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gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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rue
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| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
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pier
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| n.码头；桥墩，桥柱；[建]窗间壁，支柱 | |
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mingle
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| vt.使混合，使相混；vi.混合起来；相交往 | |
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mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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engraved
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| v.在（硬物）上雕刻（字，画等）( engrave的过去式和过去分词 )；将某事物深深印在（记忆或头脑中） | |
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scowling
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| 怒视，生气地皱眉( scowl的现在分词 ) | |
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glistens
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| v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的第三人称单数 ) | |
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miser
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| n.守财奴，吝啬鬼 (adj.miserly) | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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dame
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| n.女士 | |
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cipher
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| n.零；无影响力的人；密码 | |
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embroidered
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| adj．绣花的 | |
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propensity
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| n.倾向；习性 | |
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gaping
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| adj.口的；张口的；敞口的；多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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illuminates
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| v.使明亮( illuminate的第三人称单数 )；照亮；装饰；说明 | |
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cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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canes
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| n.（某些植物，如竹或甘蔗的）茎( cane的名词复数 )；（用于制作家具等的）竹竿；竹杖 | |
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rogue
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| n.流氓；v.游手好闲 | |
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enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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gilt
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| adj.镀金的；n.金边证券 | |
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mosaic
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| n./adj.镶嵌细工的，镶嵌工艺品的，嵌花式的 | |
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ornaments
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| n.装饰( ornament的名词复数 )；点缀；装饰品；首饰v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的第三人称单数 ) | |
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lining
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| n.衬里，衬料 | |
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bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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picturesquely
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outrageously
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| 凶残地； 肆无忌惮地； 令人不能容忍地； 不寻常地 | |
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insolence
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| n.傲慢；无礼；厚颜；傲慢的态度 | |
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abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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jargon
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| n.术语，行话 | |
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poked
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| v.伸出( poke的过去式和过去分词 )；戳出；拨弄；与（某人）性交 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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crests
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| v.到达山顶（或浪峰）( crest的第三人称单数 )；到达洪峰，达到顶点 | |
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wretch
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| n.可怜的人，不幸的人；卑鄙的人 | |
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amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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inaccessible
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| adj.达不到的，难接近的 | |
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brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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vices
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| 缺陷( vice的名词复数 )； 恶习； 不道德行为； 台钳 | |
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boisterous
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| adj.喧闹的，欢闹的 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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jovial
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| adj.快乐的，好交际的 | |
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odious
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| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
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middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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haggle
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| vi.讨价还价，争论不休 | |
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buck
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| n.雄鹿，雄兔；v.马离地跳跃 | |
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billiards
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| n.台球 | |
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eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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rumbles
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| 隆隆声，辘辘声( rumble的名词复数 ) | |
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spout
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| v.喷出，涌出；滔滔不绝地讲；n.喷管；水柱 | |
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dominions
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| 统治权( dominion的名词复数 )； 领土； 疆土； 版图 | |
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azure
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| adj.天蓝色的，蔚蓝色的 | |
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cargo
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| n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物 | |
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