This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1912 edition. Excerpt: ...miscegenation is lower in the scale than the snobbery that is bent on attaining to the fancied strain if only by purchase. Thackeray wrote of the "lowly-minded British snob," but he is more truly ambitiously-minded, taking his ambition for such as it is, for, born into a society arranged in grades he ...
Read More
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1912 edition. Excerpt: ...miscegenation is lower in the scale than the snobbery that is bent on attaining to the fancied strain if only by purchase. Thackeray wrote of the "lowly-minded British snob," but he is more truly ambitiously-minded, taking his ambition for such as it is, for, born into a society arranged in grades he is unhappy unless he can climb. Even snobbery has its good side, and the only snob who is past redemption is the snob who submits to be snubbed. But the subject is deserving of philosophical treatment, for the instinct is a force in human affairs. Research into its origins might upset our accepted theories of the origin of Kingship. In Mr. James's The American Scene, he gives us the atmosphere of a gala night at the New York Opera House, and communicates to us the sense of something wanted and wanting, the convergence of success and magnificence without a converging point, the ladder lifted to the sky without a star--not as in Blake's little design the greatest of wants expressed by the humblest means, but the meanest of wants expressed by the utmost magnificence of means. A mean desire, but ineradicable from humanity. Another national trait ascribed to us which is greatly lenified I think on examination, is hypocrisy in morals. We put our hands over our faces, they say, but peep through our fingers. The Englishman, though no better than his neighbours, is for ever being shocked, and the word "shoking" has found place as a term of ridicule in Larousse. The whited sepulchre is held to be a peculiarly British erection. I would meet the charge boldly by maintaining, in the first place, that a sepulchre is better whited than not; but if this be denied I would assert that the Englishman when shocked is nine times out of ten...
Read Less
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very Good. First edition. Tan cloth stamped in brown, gilt-stamped spine title. Offsetting on endpapers, small stain on front board, spine a shade darker, else still very good. Scarce.