Social Pictorial Satire — Inside the Classic

ch was drawing for _Punch_. The gaiety of one nation at least has been eclipsed by his death. Is it merely that there is no such light humorist to see and draw for us in a frolicsome spirit all the fun and the jollity? Is it because some of us have grown old? Or is it that the British people themselves have changed and gone back to their old way of taking their pleasure sadly?

Everything is so different, somehow; the very girls themselves have grown a head taller, and look serious, stately, and dignified, like Olympian goddesses, even when they are dancing and playing lawn-tennis.

I for one should no more dream of calling them the darlings than I should dare to kiss them under the mistletoe, were I ever so splendid a young captain. Indeed I am too prostrate in admiration--I can only suck the top of my stick and gaze in jealous ecstasy, like one of Leech's little snobs. They are no longer pretty as their grandmothers were--whom Leech drew so well in the old days! They are _beautiful_!

And then they are so cultivated, and _know_ such a lot--of books, of art, of science, of politics, and theology--of the world the flesh, and the devil. They actually think for themselves; they have broken loose and jumped over the ring-fence; they have taken to the water, these lovely chicks, and swim like ducklings, to the dismay of those good old cocks and hens, their grandparents! And my love of them is tinged with awe, as was Leech's love of that mighty, beautiful, but most uncertain quadruped, the thoroughbred horse--for, like him, when they are good, they are very, very good, but when they are bad, they are horrid. We have changed other things as well: the swell has become the masher, and is a terrible dull dog; the poor little snob has blossomed into a blatant 'Arry, and no longer wears impossible hats and iron heels to his boots; he has risen in the social scale, and holds his own without fear or favour in the Park and everywhere else. To be taken for a haristocrat is his dream!--even if he be pelted for it. In his higher developments he becomes a "bounder," and bounds away in most respectable West End ball-rooms. He is the only person with any high spirits left--perhaps that is why high spirits have gone out of fashion, like boxing the watch and wrenching off door-knockers!

And the snob of our day is quite a different person, more likely than not to be found hobnobbing with dukes and duchesses--as irreproachable in dress and demeanour as Leech himself. Thackeray discovered and christened him for us long ago; and he is related to most of us, and moves in the best society. He has even ceased to brag of his intimacy with the great, they have become so commonplace to him; and if he swaggers at all, it is about his acquaintance with some popular actor or comic vocalist whom he is privileged to call by his christian-name.

And those splendid old grandees of high rank, so imposing of aspect, so crushing to us poor mortals by mere virtue not of their wealth and title alone, but of their high-bred distinction of feature and bearing--to which Leech did such ample justice--what has become of them?

They are like the snows of yester-year! They have gone the way of their beautiful chariots with the elaborate armorial bearings and the tasselled hammercloth, the bewigged, cocked-hatted coachman, and the two gorgeous flunkies hanging on behind. Sir Gorgeous Midas has beaten the dukes in mere gorgeousness, flunkies and all--burlesqued the vulgar side of them, and unconsciously shamed it out of existence; made swagger and ostentation unpopular by his own evil example--actually improved the manners of the great by sheer mimicry of their defects. He has married his sons and his daughters to them and spoiled the noble curve of those lovely noses that Leech drew so well, and brought them down a peg in many ways, and given them a new lease of life; and he has enabled us to discover that they are not of such different clay from ourselves after all. All the old slavish formulae of deference and respect--"Your Grace," "Your Ladyship," "My Lord"--that used to run so glibly off our tongues whenever we had a chance, are now left to servants and shopkeepers; and my slight experience of them, for one, is that they do not want to be toadied a bit, and that they are very polite, well-bred, and most agreeable people.