Mexico weekly ledger., 1881-07-28
SNUBBING,


AA A~
h Capable Crttic.
From the Queen.l
Everyone can be rude, forbidding, In
solent and snubbing; but to only the
studious and gifted few is it given to
wound a friends self-love with 30 light
a touch and SO fine a point a. to be al.
most imperceptible at the moment-the
only thing certain in the matter being
the wound, which remains
It takes no artistry to contradict fat
ly, to sneer openly, to put down an in
terlocutor as a fool who may or may not
know his own folly. This is the blud-
geon style of warfare, the savage's
method of Draining his foe and of cook
ing his food in the ashes of the fire.
The art consists in the grace with
which the weapon il used; the lightness
of hand with which the thrust il made,
the smallness of the visible aperture
and the depth of the corresponding
wound. The man or woman who has
attained perfection in these methods has
ever in possession one of the most death
ly of all those poisonous needles, the
scratch of which testers to the death,
while invisible to all eyes but the suf-
ferers.
You have lately learned . quite new
fact, whether in the physical sciences OK
in historical criticism it does not signify;
but it is new, has not yet been published,
and your authority is incontestable.
You are in the presence of q snubber
when you bring out your lately acquired
treasures, and make q present of it all
around.
"That all7 / knew that long ago."
says the snubber, who has never heard
the question discussed. s-
"That is no such wonderful thing to
tell. II, now, you had told us of the ell
emental principle of life-or who wa
the ma in the iron mask-if you could
explain why a tree grows and who was
Junius-you would be worth listening
to. But this-this is not worth the time
it takes to tell"
And as all persons, ave the exception.
ally kind-hearted and the exceptionally
generous-minded, like the sport of snub-
bling as much as fox hunters like cub
hunting, you are at once set down, amid
a shower of small sneers, as q mere re-
taller of secondhand goods-as one who
tries to pass off old lamps for new, who
offers stale facts, (which every school-boy
knows" as the latest discoveries made by
the great leaders in the world of mind
all to get for yourself the kudos which
belongs to the chosen vessel of commu-
nicati0n.
Sometimes you are snubbed by q dead
blank silence. You have said something
for which it is desirable you should be
put down. So you are put down by the
crushing force of negative disdain.
| What you have said il not worth the
trouble ven of q reply, still less of con-
tradiction.
We do not answer the cat when she
news, nor think it always necessary to
convince our Polly that crying "Go to
bed Jackl" at noon is q futile exhorta-
or the parrot, and what you have just
said bears no more weight than the NEW
of the one, the pirate OF the other. And
as you a not talk with no one to listen
and no n to reply, the snub does its
work, and you are wounded as it was
meant you should BE-
And SOmetlmos you are SnuOOe0 Dy
direct and uncompromising contradic-
ton. 1t may be very nicely put if your
enemy be well-bred, or it will be brutal
ly and rudely flung in your face if he or
she be ill-mannered. Whether nicely
put or rudely flung, you are contradicted
all the same-beaten back by the surg
ing waves which sweep your own strand
bare, but bring no substitute for that
which they take away.
Cousin-german to the snub of silence
is that Of ostentatiously changing the
conversation. You are assumed to have
Aourished a red flag in the face of your
companions, and good breeding rebukes
you 70 Q sudden diversion and wheeling
round away from your post, 80 that your
aggressive flag shall not be seen. You
really are too impracticable, they seem
to say. There is no modus vivendi pos
sible with you; you have never learned
to run curricle, nor to fall into step; and
the only way to treat you is to change
front rapidly and leave you planted in
your isolation. They must prove 10 you
that they are not with you, though they
are too kind and well bred to say so
openly. Hence they snub you with q
courteous smile, as their sole reply to
what you have said, and Immediately
open another topic of conversation,
miles away from that which you had
begun