'YOU Snobs, dear little good-natured things, no that is, I hope not--I think not--I won't be too confident--none of us should be--that we are not Snobs. That very confidence savours of arrogance, and to be arrogant is to be a Snob. In all the social gradations from sneak to tyrant, nature has placed a most wondrous and various progeny of Snobs. But are there no kindly natures, no tender hearts, no souls humble, simple, and truth-loving? Ponder well on this question, sweet young ladies. And if you can answer it, as no doubt you can--lucky are you--and lucky the respected Herr Papa, and lucky the three handsome young gentlemen who are about to become each others' brothers-in-law.' (1) The introduction of Grandpapa, is I fear, Snobbish. (2) That is, as you like. I don't object to buttons in moderation. (3) Quite right. (4) Bless you! (5) Snobbish; and I doubt whether you ought to dine as well alone as with company. You will be getting too good dinners. (6) We like to be teased; but tell Papa. (7) O garters and stars! what will Captain Gordon and Exeter Hall say to this? (8) Dear little enthusiast! (9) You were never more mistaken, miss, in your life. CHAPTER XXXIII--SNOBS AND MARRIAGE Everybody of the middle rank who walks through this life with a sympathy for his companions on the same journey--at any rate, every man who has been jostling in the world for some three or four lustres--must make no end of melancholy reflections upon the fate of those victims whom Society, that is, Snobbishness, is immolating every day. With love and simplicity and natural kindness Snobbishness is perpetually at war. People dare not be happy for fear of Snobs. People dare not love for fear of Snobs. People pine away lonely under the tyranny of Snobs. Honest kindly hearts dry up and die. Gallant generous lads, blooming with hearty youth, swell into bloated old-bachelorhood, and burst and tumble over. Tender girls wither into shrunken decay, and perish solitary, from whom Snobbishness has cut off the common claim to happiness and affection with which Nature endowed us all. My heart grows sad as I see the blundering tyrant's handiwork. As I behold it I swell with cheap rage, and glow with fury against the Snob. Come down, I say, thou skulking dulness! Come down, thou stupid bully, and give up thy brutal ghost! And I arm myself with the sword and spear, and taking leave of my family, go forth to do battle with that hideous ogre and giant, that brutal despot in Snob Castle, who holds so many gentle hearts in torture and thrall. When PUNCH is king, I declare there shall be no such thing as old maids and old bachelors. The Reverend Mr. Malthus shall be burned annually, instead of Guy Fawkes. Those who don't marry shall go into the workhouse. It shall be a sin for the poorest not to have a pretty girl to love him.