Our Mutual Friend
need of powder, now, for her downcast face, as he escorts her in the
light of the setting sun to their abode of bliss.
Chapter 11
PODSNAPPERY
Mr Podsnap was well to do, and stood very high in Mr Podsnap’s opinion.
Beginning with a good inheritance, he had married a good inheritance,
and had thriven exceedingly in the Marine Insurance way, and was
quite satisfied. He never could make out why everybody was not quite
satisfied, and he felt conscious that he set a brilliant social example
in being particularly well satisfied with most things, and, above all
other things, with himself.
Thus happily acquainted with his own merit and importance, Mr Podsnap
settled that whatever he put behind him he put out of existence. There
was a dignified conclusiveness—not to add a grand convenience—in
this way of getting rid of disagreeables which had done much towards
establishing Mr Podsnap in his lofty place in Mr Podsnap’s satisfaction.
‘I don’t want to know about it; I don’t choose to discuss it; I don’t
admit it!’ Mr Podsnap had even acquired a peculiar flourish of his
right arm in often clearing the world of its most difficult problems, by
sweeping them behind him (and consequently sheer away) with those words
and a flushed face. For they affronted him.
Mr Podsnap’s world was not a very large world, morally; no, nor even
geographically: seeing that although his business was sustained upon
commerce with other countries, he considered other countries, with that
important reservation, a mistake, and of their manners and customs would
conclusively observe, ‘Not English!’ when, PRESTO! with a flourish of
the arm, and a flush of the face, they were swept away. Elsewise, the
world got up at eight, shaved close at a quarter-past, breakfasted at
nine, went to the City at ten, came home at half-past five, and dined
at seven. Mr Podsnap’s notions of the Arts in their integrity might have
been stated thus. Literature; large print, respectfully descriptive of
getting up at eight, shaving close at a quarter past, breakfasting
at nine, going to the City at ten, coming home at half-past five,
and dining at seven. Painting and Sculpture; models and portraits
representing Professors of getting up at eight, shaving close at a
quarter past, breakfasting at nine, going to the City at ten, coming
home at half-past five, and dining at seven. Music; a respectable
performance (without variations) on stringed and wind instruments,
sedately expressive of getting up at eight, shaving close at a quarter
past, breakfasting at nine, going to the City at ten, coming home at
half-past five, and dining at seven. Nothing else to be permitted to
those same vagrants the Arts, on pain of excommunication. Nothing else
To Be—anywhere!
As a so eminently respectable man, Mr Podsnap was sensible of its being
required of him to take Providence under his protection. Consequently he
always knew exactly what Providence meant. Inferior and less respectable
men might fall short of that mark, but Mr Podsnap was always up to it.
And it was very remarkable (and must have been very comfortable) that
what Providence meant, was invariably what Mr Podsnap meant.
These may be said to have been the articles of a faith and school
which the present chapter takes the liberty of calling, after its
representative man, Podsnappery. They were confined within close bounds,
as Mr Podsnap’s own head was confined by his shirt-collar; and they
were enunciated with a sounding pomp that smacked of the creaking of Mr
Podsnap’s own boots.
There was a Miss Podsnap. And this young rocking-horse was being trained
in her mother’s art of prancing in a stately manner without ever getting
on. But the high parental action was not yet imparted to her, and
in truth she was but an undersized damsel, with high shoulders, low
spirits, chilled elbows, and a rasped surface of nose, who seemed to
take occasional frosty peeps out of childhood into womanhood, and to
shrink back again, overcome by her mother’s head-dress and her father
from head to foot—crushed by the mere dead-weight of Podsnappery.
A certain institution in Mr Podsnap’s mind which he called ‘the young
person’ may be considered to have been embodied in Miss Podsnap, his
daughter. It was an inconvenient and exacting institution, as requiring
everything in the universe to be filed down and fitted to it. The
question about everything was, would it bring a blush into the cheek of
the young person? And the inconvenience of the young person was, that,
according to Mr Podsnap, she seemed always liable to burst into
blushes when there was no need at all. There appeared to be no line of
demarcation between the young person’s excessive innocence, and another
person’s guiltiest knowledge. Take Mr Podsnap’s word for it, and the
soberest tints of drab, white, lilac, and grey, were all flaming red to
this troublesome Bull of a young person.
The Podsnaps lived in a shady angle adjoining Portman Square. They were
a kind of people certain to dwell in the shade, wherever they dwelt.
Miss Podsnap’s life had been, from her first appearance on this planet,
altogether of a shady order; for, Mr Podsnap’s young person was likely
to get little good out of association with other young persons, and had
therefore been restricted to companionship with not very congenial older
persons, and with massive furniture. Miss Podsnap’s early views of life
being principally derived from the reflections of it in her father’s
boots, and in the walnut and rosewood tables of the dim drawing-rooms,
and in their swarthy giants of looking-glasses, were of a sombre cast;
and it was not wonderful that now, when she was on most days solemnly
tooled through the Park by the side of her mother in a great tall
custard-coloured phaeton, she showed above the apron of that vehicle
like a dejected young person sitting up in bed to take a startled look
at things in general, and very strongly desiring to get her head under
the counterpane again.
Said Mr Podsnap to Mrs Podsnap, ‘Georgiana is almost eighteen.’
Said Mrs Podsnap to Mr Podsnap, assenting, ‘Almost eighteen.’
Said Mr Podsnap then to Mrs Podsnap, ‘Really I think we should have some
people on Georgiana’s birthday.’
Said Mrs Podsnap then to Mr Podsnap, ‘Which will enable us to clear off
all those people who are due.’
So it came to pass that Mr and Mrs Podsnap requested the honour of the
company of seventeen friends of their souls at dinner; and that they
substituted other friends of their souls for such of the seventeen
original friends of their souls as deeply regretted that a prior
engagement prevented their having the honour of dining with Mr and Mrs
Podsnap, in pursuance of their kind invitation; and that Mrs Podsnap
said of all these inconsolable personages, as she checked them off with
a pencil in her list, ‘Asked, at any rate, and got rid of;’ and that
they successfully disposed of a good many friends of their souls in this
way, and felt their consciences much lightened.
There were still other friends of their souls who were not entitled to
be asked to dinner, but had a claim to be invited to come and take a
haunch of mutton vapour-bath at half-past nine. For the clearing off
of these worthies, Mrs Podsnap added a small and early evening to the
dinner, and looked in at the music-shop to bespeak a well-conducted
automaton to come and play quadrilles for a carpet dance.
Mr and Mrs Veneering, and Mr and Mrs Veneering’s bran-new bride and
bridegroom, were of the dinner company; but the Podsnap establishment
had nothing else in common with the Veneerings. Mr Podsnap could
tolerate taste in a mushroom man who stood in need of that sort
of thing, but was far above it himself. Hideous solidity was the
characteristic of the Podsnap plate. Everything was made to look as
heavy as it could, and to take up as much room as possible. Everything
said boastfully, ‘Here you have as much of me in my ugliness as if I
were only lead; but I am so many ounces of precious metal worth so much
an ounce;—wouldn’t you like to melt me down?’ A corpulent straddling
epergne, blotched all over as if it had broken out in an eruption rather
than been ornamented, delivered this address from an unsightly silver
platform in the centre of the table. Four silver wine-coolers, each
furnished with four staring heads, each head obtrusively carrying a big
silver ring in each of its ears, conveyed the sentiment up and down the
table, and handed it on to the pot-bellied silver salt-cellars. All the
big silver spoons and forks widened the mouths of the company expressly
for the purpose of thrusting the sentiment down their throats with every
morsel they ate.
The majority of the guests were like the plate, and included several
heavy articles weighing ever so much. But there was a foreign gentleman
among them: whom Mr Podsnap had invited after much debate with
himself—believing the whole European continent to be in mortal alliance
against the young person—and there was a droll disposition, not only on
the part of Mr Podsnap but of everybody else, to treat him as if he were
a child who was hard of hearing.
As a delicate concession to this unfortunately-born foreigner, Mr
Podsnap, in receiving him, had presented his wife as ‘Madame Podsnap;’
also his daughter as ‘Mademoiselle Podsnap,’ with some inclination to
add ‘ma fille,’ in which bold venture, however, he checked himself. The
Veneerings being at that time the only other arrivals, he had added (in
a condescendingly explanatory manner), ‘Monsieur Vey-nair-reeng,’ and
had then subsided into English.
‘How Do You Like London?’ Mr Podsnap now inquired from his station of
host, as if he were administering something in the nature of a powder or
potion to the deaf child; ‘London, Londres, London?’
The foreign gentleman admired it.
‘You find it Very Large?’ said Mr Podsnap, spaciously.
The foreign gentleman found it very large.
‘And Very Rich?’
The foreign gentleman found it, without doubt, enormement riche.
‘Enormously Rich, We say,’ returned Mr Podsnap, in a condescending
manner. ‘Our English adverbs do Not terminate in Mong, and We Pronounce
the “ch” as if there were a “t” before it. We say Ritch.’
‘Reetch,’ remarked the foreign gentleman.
‘And Do You Find, Sir,’ pursued Mr Podsnap, with dignity, ‘Many
Evidences that Strike You, of our British Constitution in the Streets Of
The World’s Metropolis, London, Londres, London?’
The foreign gentleman begged to be pardoned, but did not altogether
understand.
‘The Constitution Britannique,’ Mr Podsnap explained, as if he were
teaching in an infant school. ‘We Say British, But You Say Britannique,
You Know’ (forgivingly, as if that were not his fault). ‘The
Constitution, Sir.’
The foreign gentleman said, ‘Mais, yees; I know eem.’
A youngish sallowish gentleman in spectacles, with a lumpy forehead,
seated in a supplementary chair at a corner of the table, here caused
a profound sensation by saying, in a raised voice, ‘ESKER,’ and then
stopping dead.
‘Mais oui,’ said the foreign gentleman, turning towards him. ‘Est-ce
que? Quoi donc?’
But the gentleman with the lumpy forehead having for the time delivered
himself of all that he found behind his lumps, spake for the time no
more.
‘I Was Inquiring,’ said Mr Podsnap, resuming the thread of his
discourse, ‘Whether You Have Observed in our Streets as We should say,
Upon our Pavvy as You would say, any Tokens—’
The foreign gentleman, with patient courtesy entreated pardon; ‘But what
was tokenz?’
‘Marks,’ said Mr Podsnap; ‘Signs, you know, Appearances—Traces.’
‘Ah! Of a Orse?’ inquired the foreign gentleman.
‘We call it Horse,’ said Mr Podsnap, with forbearance. ‘In England,
Angleterre, England, We Aspirate the “H,” and We Say “Horse.” Only our