isfaction
in itself, it builds its supercilious and fantastic conceit on the
wretchedness and wants of others. Violent antipathies are always
suspicious, and betray a secret affinity. The difference between the
'Great Vulgar and the Small' is mostly in outward circumstances. The
coxcomb criticises the dress of the clown, as the pedant cavils at
the bad grammar of the illiterate, or the prude is shocked at the
backslidings of her frail acquaintance. Those who have the fewest
resources in themselves naturally seek the food of their self-love
elsewhere. The most ignorant people find most to laugh at in strangers:
scandal and satire prevail most in country-places; and a propensity to
ridicule every the slightest or most palpable deviation from what
we happen to approve, ceases with the progress of common sense and
decency.(1) True worth does not exult in the faults and deficiencies
of others; as true refinement turns away from grossness and deformity,
instead of being tempted to indulge in an unmanly triumph over it.
Raphael would not faint away at the daubing of a signpost, nor Homer
hold his head the higher for being in the company of a Grub Street bard.
Real power, real excellence, does not seek for a foil in inferiority;
nor fear contamination from coming in contact with that which is coarse
and homely. It reposes on itself, and is equally free from spleen and
affectation. But the spirit of gentility is the mere essence of spleen
and affectation; of affected delight in its own would-be qualifications,
and of ineffable disdain poured out upon the involuntary blunders
or accidental disadvantages of those whom it chooses to treat as its
inferiors. Thus a fashionable Miss titters till she is ready to burst
her sides at the uncouth shape of a bonnet or the abrupt drop of a
curtsey (such as Jeanie Deans would make) in a country-girl who comes
to be hired by her Mamma as a servant; yet to show how little foundation
there is for this hysterical expression of her extreme good opinion of
herself and contempt for the untutored rustic, she would herself the
next day be delighted with the very same shaped bonnet if brought her by
a French milliner and told it was all the fashion, and in a week's time
will become quite familiar with the maid, and chatter with her (upon
equal terms) about caps and ribbons and lace by the hour together. There
is no difference between them but that of situation in the kitchen or
in the parlour: let circu