SAY XVI. ON VULGARITY AND AFFECTATION

Few subjects are more nearly allied than these two--vulgarity and
affectation. It may be said of them truly that 'thin partitions do their
bounds divide.' There cannot be a surer proof of a low origin or of an
innate meanness of disposition than to be always talking and thinking
of being genteel. One must feel a strong tendency to that which one is
always trying to avoid: whenever we pretend, on all occasions, a mighty
contempt for anything, it is a pretty clear sign that we feel ourselves
very nearly on a level with it. Of the two classes of people, I hardly
know which is to be regarded with most distaste, the vulgar aping the
genteel, or the genteel constantly sneering at and endeavouring to
distinguish themselves from the vulgar. These two sets of persons are
always thinking of one another; the lower of the higher with envy, the
more fortunate of their less happy neighbours with contempt. They
are habitually placed in opposition to each other; jostle in their
pretensions at every turn; and the same objects and train of thought
(only reversed by the relative situation of either party) occupy
their whole time and attention. The one are straining every nerve, and
outraging common sense, to be thought genteel; the others have no other
object or idea in their heads than not to be thought vulgar. This is
but poor spite; a very pitiful style of ambition. To be merely not that
which one heartily despises is a very humble claim to superiority: to
despise what one really is, is still worse. Most of the characters in
Miss Burney's novels--the Branghtons, the Smiths, the Dubsters, the
Cecilias, the Delvilles, etc.--are well met in this respect, and much of
a piece: the one half are trying not to be taken for themselves, and the
other half not to be taken for the first. They neither of them have any
pretensions of their own, or real standard of worth. 'A feather will
turn the scale of their avoirdupois'; though the fair authoress was
not aware of the metaphysical identity of her principal and subordinate
characters. Affectation is the master-key to both.

Gentility is only a more select and artificial kind of vulgarity. It
cannot exist but by a sort of borrowed distinction. It plumes itself up
and revels in the homely pretensions of the mass of mankind. It judges
of the worth of everything by name, fashion, and opinion; and hence,
from the conscious absence of real qualities or sincere sat