The whole art of the gentility-mongers of all sorts in London, and _à fortiori_ of their wives and families, is to lay a tax upon social intercourse as nearly as possible amounting to a prohibition; their dinners are criminally wasteful, and sinfully extravagant to this end; to this end they insist on making _price_ the test of what they are pleased to consider _select society_ in their own sets, and they consequently cannot have a dance without guinea tickets nor a _pic-nic_ without dozens of champagne. This shows their native ignorance and vulgarity more than enough; genteel people go upon a plan directly contrary, not merely enjoying themselves, but enjoying themselves without extravagance or waste: in this respect the gentility-mongers would do well to imitate people of fashion.
The exertions a gentility-monger will make, to rub his skirts against people above him; the humiliations, mortifications, snubbing, he will submit to, are almost incredible. One would hardly believe that a retired tradesman, of immense wealth, and enjoying all the respect that immense wealth will secure, should actually offer large sums of money to a lady of fashion, as an inducement to procure for him cards of invitation to her _set_, which he stated was the great object of his existence. Instead of being indignant at his presumption, the lady in question, pitying the poor man's folly, attempted to reason with him, assuring him with great truth that whatever might be his wealth, his power or desire of pleasing, he would be rendered unhappy and ridiculous, by the mere dint of pretension to a circle to which he had no legitimate claim, and advising him, as a friend, to attempt some more laudable and satisfactory ambition.
All this good advice was, however, thrown away; our gentility-monger persevered, contriving somehow to gain a passport to some of the _outer_ circles of fashionable life; was ridiculed, laughed at, and honoured with the _soubriquet_ (he was a pianoforte maker) of the _Semi-Grand_!
We know another instance, where two young men, engaged in trade in the city, took a splendid mansion at the West End, furnished it sumptuously, got some desperate knight or baronet's widow to give parties at their house, inviting whomsoever she thought proper, at their joint expense. It is unnecessary to say, the poor fellows succeeded in getting into good society, not indeed in the _Court Circular_, but in the--_Gazette_.