| | | | | WHAT is that thing which everybody remembers, which in the most | grateful of us outlives all benefits and overtops all services? How | may a man construct himself a niche in every mind, connect undying | associations with his name, haunt innumerable memories, make | himself a household word, point a moral, and become a standing | illustration? How may he get himself thought of and talked of most | lastingly and surely? The answer is really too obvious. Simply by | cultivating the art of snubbing, or, in favoured instances, by merely | withdrawing all checks on a natural bias and yielding to the dictates | of an inborn acidity. It is an old word, and was very appropriately | used in other days to express the withering action of the east wind; | but we make no apology for using it in its modern and more familiar | sense, as a social blight, as nipping our budding joys, and breathing | its cold blast on human jollity. And yet what is a snub, after all, that | it should brand itself so indelibly? Why should we be more | | vulnerable to its attacks than to more formidable thrusts? If it were | anything very seriously touching character or credit, it would not go | by that name. The word affects to be humorous, and the wound is | assumed to be slight, and men are not unused to plain speaking: they | acquiesce in the rights of authority in others; and youth, which is | especially sensitive to snubs ~~ which experiences all the fever fit of | shame at being merely told to mind its own business ~~ makes | comparatively small account of more serious censure, and indulges | in a playful nomenclature for the graver forms of reproof. How does | it give more pain than many a heavy rebuke from quarters whose | displeasure is serious, considering that the man who snubs does not | primarily mean to give pain at all? | | There are people who are conscious and proud of the faculty of | giving pain, who have a morbid appetite for making people uneasy | about them, to whom a comfortable person is an eyesore. They feel | the promptings of an impulse akin to that which made the Roman | Emperor, seeing a fat and jovial senator enjoying himself in the | amphitheatre, bid his attendants put a sword in that man's hand and | make him fight a lion; and which stirs in the domestic tyrant ~~ | | | but there need be nothing cruel in the man who snubs. It is good sort | of people who are tempted to it ~~ honest, sincere men, who have a | notion of doing their friends | | good, of disabusing them summarily of their faults, and shaking | them out of follies and mistakes; as when Dr Johnson, the great | master of the art, turned upon one of his flatterers: | They go right at the offence against taste, sense, or | propriety, as it may be, and have a confidence in their way of putting | things so as to confound and convince the sinner at a stroke. They | are alive to two things, the matter to be exposed and put down, and | their aptitude for the work. The feelings of their friend are the only | part of the question not taken into account, which, however, happen | to be dearer to the patient than either his friend's perspicacity or | abstract truth, even though there existed no difference of opinion all | this latter point. | | When we endeavour to analyse it, the immediate effect of a snub is | to induce a feeling of deprivation and exposure. Its physical | sensation is like the sudden loss of a garment, and the consequent | rush of cold; and we do in fact lose, in the surprise, the snug | covering of our usual self-respect. We are dependent creatures. We | are apt, on the instant of others not respecting us, to feel ourselves | not respectable, small, inferior, incompetent, unable to hold our | own; and hence the main annoyance. That which predominates in a | snub is the pressing difficulty of how to take it. We are caught at | unawares without our weapons. There are assaults and aggressions | of a nature to rouse our courage and to quicken our powers, which | call for and suggest an answer, which may be resented | | on the spot without injury to our dignity; but this is not one of them. | All that can be done generally under a snub ~~ all, at least, that we | actually do ~~ is to pull-up suddenly with an inner blank sense of | tingling, a doubt as to where we are, a confused feeling of having the | worst of it, which our instinct teaches us to keep to ourselves as | much as possible. For it must be noted that a snub is of necessity a | sudden blow, given when we are at a disadvantage, careless, and at | ease in the security of social intercourse. Social intercourse takes | sympathy for granted. It assumes one general genial sentiment, a | disposition to follow a lead, to pursue subjects in the spirit in which | they are started. A snub is a check, a blank, it is a curtain suddenly | drawn down, it is pulling-up against a dead-wall, it is cold | obstruction and recoil. Either the snubber has authority on his side, | and we have laid ourselves open by some inadvertence, by a | misplaced trust in his condescension ~~ and we have seen parents | painfully snub their children in this sort, first allowing them | liberties, then stopping them with a harsh check in mid-career of | spirits, and this in the presence of strangers ~~ or perhaps we have | given way to enthusiasm, and are met by ridicule; or we have made | a confidence which we think tender, and it is received with | indifference; or we tell a story, and are asked for the point of it; or | we are given to understand that we are mistaken where we have | assumed ourselves well informed; or our taste is coolly set at naught; | or we talk, and are reminded we are prosy; or we are brought | face-to-face with our | | ignorance in a way to make us feel it most keenly. The strength of a | snub lies in the sudden apprehension that we have committed | ourselves, and a consequent painful sense of insignificance-that | there is somebody quite close to us, regardless of our feelings, | looking down on us, and ostentatiously unsympathising. This is an | elaborate description of perhaps a momentary sensation following | on an encounter probably as short, after which each party may seem | to pursue his way unconscious; but in human affairs time is not the | measure of importance, and one of the two at least treasures a | memory of it in his heart bearing no proportion whatever to the time | it took in acting. | | Perfectly collected and self-satisfied persons are impervious to | snubs. Sam Weller is represented as receiving one from his master | (we need not say well merited) with perfect smiling serenity. So are | the happy few gifted with the power of repartee and rejoinder, who | may be called social debaters, whose glory is an emergency, who | can collect their powers on the instant, and | with usury. When M. Scribe, according to the newspaper story, | answered the millionaire who wanted him to lend him the use of his | genius for a consideration, that it was contrary to Scripture for a | horse (so he wrote it) and an ass to plough together, it was a | perfectly fair snub. The man deserved anything he got; but he must | have felt triumph rather than mortification when, on the spur of the | moment, he could demand what right had M. Scribe to call him a | horse. But these cases are too | | few to be taken into account, and the practised snubber has generally | the game in his own hand, and secures a victory. If morals are his | forte, he will have demonstrated how much more prompt are his | moral instincts than our own, how quick he is to discover the right | which our dulled perceptions or stolid selfishness had missed. If his | line is intellectual, he will have reminded us of our illogical habits of | thought and our bounded views compared with his keen intelligence | and clear judgment. If life awl manners are his care, he will have | convicted us of mistakes, awkwardnesses, solecisms; if information | and general knowledge, he will have succeeded in impressing us | with a sense of our deficiencies; if taste, he will take care to show us | that there is nothing he values so slightly as our opinion. | | That natural human sensitiveness is constantly lost sight of by quick | and clever people, is clear even from fiction. In the dialogue of most | novels, we find snubs which could not be inflicted in real intercourse | without bringing all intercourse to an end. All historical | conversations professing to have actually taken place ~~ from | Canute's reproof to his courtiers to the | quoted by Macaulay | ~~ foster the delusion that mankind will stand wounds to their | self-love which they will not stand; and the snubbers may thus be | tempted to try experiments which, in spite of momentary triumphs, | end in their own real defeat. There are men exemplary in all the | duties of life who never pass a day without | | snubbing somebody ~~ their wives, of course (natural victims, used | to be told that they say nothing and do nothing right), their children, | their servants, their underlings, their acquaintances, their associates. | Every day something has passed their lips which has acted like a | blow at the time, and worked on the recollection like a blister, which | has been repeated with querulous soreness and been passed on to the | world as a fresh trait of character, which has added to the growing | barrier which daily rises between the man and his species. Not that | we can cut him ~~ we do not even wish to do so. All the ceremonies | of friendly intercourse continue to pass between us; there is no | reason they should ever be left off. But at every encounter he gets | shoved farther and farther away from our secrets. One by one he | loses the key to the hearts of his friends, who stand on the defensive, | keep watch, shut themselves up in his presence with instinctive | caution, ti1l we doubt not he often in his inner heart wonders at his | own isolation. For our part we are sincerely sorry for him; and we | are so conscious besides that men may have the habit without | knowing it, that we would offer one general counsel ~~ never under | any temptation to practise a talent for setting down on people worth | caring for. Risk a good deal, take a circuitous route, leave good | advice unsaid, or said in less trenchant telling fashion, bear | irritations, nuisances, what not, rather than inflict any sudden wound | on your friend's self-love. Do not put him, on your behalf, on the | duty of Christian forgiveness. Allow him to rest in some ignorance | of your | | opinion, even though he may believe it more to his advantage than it | happens to be. Submit to be incomplete; sacrifice the pleasure of | being sharp and acute at his expense; for it is very certain that he | will not like you the better, and very unlikely also that he should | himself be the better, for your having made | him feel like, and perhaps look like, a fool. If he is often put under | the apprehension of it, the least that can be expected of him is, that | he will eschew your confidence, and carefully keep on the windy | side of intimacy. | | Here lies the secret of so many charges of ingratitude, and benefits | forgotten, of unrequited, unvalued sacrifices. Not that a few, or even | a series, of ill-considered unpalatable words ought to counterbalance | real services, but that they put human nature to a strain which too | severely tests its weak points. And there is this to be said ~~ that | contempt, of all things the hardest to bear, is, if we go to the bottom | of it, the motive force of most snubs. The practice is certainly | incompatible with a respectful habit of mind. Our friend is in a hurry | to tell us that our judgment is worth nothing, that our expression of it | must be stopped, that we, or something about us, must be put down. | As we think over the matter, the examples that first occur come from | contemptuous minds ~~ men without deference, who are | accustomed to lean upon themselves, who do not expect to find | much in other people. We do not find them appealing to others, or | wishing to know their thoughts, or willing to follow out their | speculations, or listening to their suggestions. They live and think | alone, impatient | | of interference and interruption, and nourish some notion of | themselves which practically, though it may not take the form of | vulgar arrogance and vanity, sets them above the possibility of | benefit from the crude, unformed, untaught intelligences around | them. Indeed, it is their impatience of other men's ideas and | conclusions which leads them to commit themselves. | | And it is to be observed that such men never do see others at their | best. A person of ordinary modesty, not gifted with self-reliance, not | confident of his position, cannot show himself to advantage under | such circumstances; and thus men are encouraged in their self-esteem | by the consequences of their own ungraciousness. Nobody is | quite himself before them unless he is also past the possibility of an | open show of contempt, though even this immunity depends on the | rank of the snubber. The Duke of Wellington could tell an earl, his | colleague, | and when wit and learning were rank, Warburton and | Swift could and did snub all the world. If our remarks lack the | pungency of appropriate illustration, it is not because apt examples | do not crowd upon us. We could fill columns with them ~~ the | collegiate, the social, the domestic ~~ all of them very much to the | purpose, and some very amusing; but, as we have said, these are just | the things people never forget. Disguise them as we would, they | would be traced to their right source, and the sanctities of private life | must be respected, though our disquisition lose half its value, and all | its liveliness, by the sacrifice.