SNOB PSYCHOLOGY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19764, 15 April 1926, Page 14

SNOB PSYCHOLOGY.

INTENTIONAL SHORT-SIGHTEDNESS. WOMEN THE GREATEST OFFENDERS. To contend, as some do, that the snob is exclusively feminine is surely to forget such men as Major F'endennia, Sir Barnes Newcome, Mr Collins in “Pride and Prejudice,” Sir Walter Eliot in “Persuasion,” apd, most priceless of all, X)r John in ‘Villette, who “was not the man who, in appreciating the gem”—that is, Paulina, only daughter of M. de liassom pierre—“could forget its setting. , There was about Dr John all of the man of the world; to satisfy himself did not suffice; society must approve, the world admire what lie did or he counted his measures futile.” In short, he required “in his victnx” youth, beauty, charm, high cultivation, elegance, wealth, and various accessories, “for these ho stipulated.” Then, very sensibly, he fell in love, and Lucy Snowe.’s cake was dough. But in spite of these and count.ess other such the woman snob is doubtless the one most frequently met; and with all due deference to the autocrat, “the position so assured that one is unconscious of it does hot necessarily prevent . anyone anywheio from being a nob. For instance, no one will deny that Lady Kew, the °* Lady Ann Newcome and the grandmother ot Ethel Newcome—the daughter, in fact, of a hundred earls—and the sister of a marquis, was an utter snob. One 'how she looked through Colonel Newcome, though she had already met him half a dozen times and ignored . and insulted or patronised everyone not of her own rank, and doubtless she felt the sister of the Marquis of Steyne should. _ , ■ Again Lady Catherine de Bourgh in Pride and Prejudice,” for her snobbery and insolence to those beneath her, would be hard to beat. -Yet her position was .certainly assured. Both ladies belonged to that period of which G. W.‘ E. Russell writes:-‘When Wilberforce refused a peerage it was because it would exclude him from intimacy with private gentlemen, clergymen, and merchants’ families”; so it is small wonder the aristocacy took itself so seriously, and that Lady Kew and Lady Catherine de Bourgh thought that to mere gentle people they could be as rude as they liked. But snobs flourish in a democracy, and even in a orand new democracy one comes across them at every turn. They are often women of lowly origin, with no special gifts or attainments, and with no position beyond that which through much scheming they have struggled to in some suburban c.ique. Climbers for the most part, for, unlike the people described by E. F. Benson in. his latest book, they obviously have not jet attained to that position ••whore there is nothing left to climb to." _ . It is such women who in their desire to he in the first flight, who in their efforts to make others think they are m the Hist flight, at times deliberately ignore those among whom they were brought up. One must be forgiven for assuming that when the position of people does not permit them to keep up an acquaintance with' P®°P| of the same social status as themselv^, must bo precarious in the extreme. H woman,” says the autocrat, puts on aus with her early equals she has something about herself or her family she is ashamed of oi o£ht to be. An official of standing was rude to me once ‘Oh, that is th.i maternal grandfather,’ a wise old fuond to me, Thins when a woman cannot recogmre, cannot even see, the friend who is poor, yet never misses the one who had become rich, people are generally aware she suffers more from want of intellect than from defec t vision. Such women in any class put back clvtl'sallon' hundreds of years, and do more te create socialists than the united efforts of many stump orators on many mw box s. It is this attitude of the newly-rich to foilmer friends that proves to people the truth or die old saving that half-breeds cannot stand oats For a friend to turn down art'lend is to some the unforgivable sin, but for people to ignore their own I’esh and bloo ‘ l_ ~ except, Of course, mutually am! after a fight—is a sin against Nature Allowance has always to be made for the ease with which even near reiatlvesgetout nf touch and grow away trom each otne .is life- goes on. In spite of affection, a wedge seomfto cleave them apart—oven when they have no “Invidious bar” in the way of- birth *o break. But where women ignore or cold--houlder their ov flesh and blood, people naturally imagine either that, thesei rdativp«» ?re not presentable or treat there is “ometbini? in their own past they w*sh to iZr Not only do they defeat their own ends but -“blast their own lineage to all eternity. The fact that In ignoring the stock from which they sprung, lowering it in people’s estimation, they lower themselves, and in honouring their own people they honour themselves, is one they, are evidently unable to g.asp. Even the Emperor has poor relations, says the Chinese proveib. and though the wife of an English Royalty—the Diu’ ss of York —has or had a cousin in a on the prestige of the throne does no. appear on this accourt to have suffered A snob may easily occur in a hitherto irreproachable family, and though he or she ina v regard Irm or herself as the pick of the’ bunch.” “the flower of the flock, to others he or she mav be “the blot on ’he scutcheon," the one person in their famflj. howeviT obscure, the one episode in their history, however undistinguished, of which ihey are ashamed. A bar sinister in their pedigree would not be at all the disgrace that they feel the snob. c?ome can b 3 sensible t-nough whore moaey and the society of . those with money does not take'them off their feet. But the trouble is they haunt the rich. Possibly, as In the case of Major Pendennls and his old Irlend Leech of the Forty-fcurth, they “are so poor themselves they cannot afford to know anj r - It Clever seems to occur to them as to the wit in tli3 ’nineties that "God shows what Ho thinks of money by the people to whom He sends it.” That in some instances a Pint pot, a whisky bottle, a salted mine, a list of the “crook things” with which he is connected, should appear on their I Mends’ coat of arms ns showing the origin of the family fortunes concerns them not In the least Their friend Is well gilt—that is enough, He is always interesting: his wife and "daughters always attractive, beautiful, too, with that subtle beauty—not always visible to the outward eye—that the womankind of the mm of many thousands a year always possess. For instance, out of a group of schoolgirls in similar uniforms, al! more or less pretty and well mannered, there are those who will unhesitatingly pick out as beauties the girls whose parents are rich, and never those whose parents are poor. People like to say “it used not to be”: but it is nonsense to say It was ever different. Everyone will allow Dr Johnson was eon-mopsense himself, and it was Dr Johnson who pointed out that if a man with a rich coat and a man with a poor coat entered the room. It was the former to whom attention was shown. "Every time” riel- man is so often deferred to on account of his coat that unless he has a strong head he gets like Emma Woodhour to tli nk him self of “the first consequence.” and in time develops into the lend nf rich man La T ruyei-0- described, the kind that by the snobbery of others is himself turned into a snob. Si-ice snobs would rot even dare to recognise the Archangel St Michael unless he were received by their clique and would bo ready at any time to fall or, the neck of the person, however “crook," whom their clique considered sufficiently gilt, they are obviously worshippers of false gods. i