The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1897-02-11
Lemaitre's Address to
French Academies.
Witty Definition That Ridi-
culeS the FaddiStS.
Snobs. He Declares, are Blind to the
Role They are Playing.

At the recent meeting of the five Acad-
emies in Paris, Nj. Jules Lamatire reac a
paDer on "Snobs." One may always
count on thoughtful matter from the
famous critic and author, hut he is par
ticulsry pointed in the address which
follows, especially in his definition OF a
snob. ceiinition that is strong castiga-
tion to many a self-complsisant inoivid-
uaI.
The word snob, began NJ. Lemsitre, has
| been very much in use for several wears,
and IL is employed by snobs themselves,
like all fashionable words. We in France
have turned the meaning of the word
somewhat forcibly away from it's original
Significance, for in English the word has
also an element OF humbuggery, and, as
| snobs are often hum bugs at heart, they
are compelled ny the very essence of their
character MT to fail in belief in them
selves, and even to pretend to supreme
distinction in matters of thought, senti-
ment and taste. We have, therefore, had
In succession snobs OF naturalistic docu-
mentary romance, snoos of artistic style
in writing, snobs of Psychology, snobs of
pessimism, snobs OF sym polistic and
mystical poetry, snobs OF Tolstoi and
Russian evangelism, snobs of Ibsen and
Norwegian individualism, snobs of
Botticelli, snobs Of st. Francis d. Assist,
snohs Of English aestheticism, Nietzsche
+, snobs and those Of self-culture, snobs OF
intellectualisD, ,oi.occuItism m and Satanism,
| to say nothing Of snobs of music and
| painting, of Socialism or dress, of sport,
OF worldliness and aristocracy-who are
by the way, often the same snobs for one
snobbishness irresista bly, attracts anot her,
and becomes culminative in quality. But
/ shall speak to you now of no other than
| literary snobbishness AMI scarcely know
TO tell the truth whether this will te
| satire or an apology!
What Is snobbishpess? 1t is In a word,
| the union of the docility of mind that is
almost touching with vanity tnat is
| wholly augha ole. The literary snob does
not perceive that to declare himself
blinuly for no art and no literature ex-
cept that OF the tomorrow, of the future,
| Is to flock with all geese of it's feather; he
does not see that 1t is quite as little orig
inal to attach one's self merely to the party
that swears only by all things new as to
the parry that has faith in naught out
| tradition, and tnat the one way takes
no more effort than the other. For, as
la Bruyere has 1T, "there are two totally
opposite things whereby we may be
found in equally strong fetters;
one Ia habit, the other the passion for
novelty" II is bv the contrast between
bis actual banality and his pretension to
originality that the snob makes us smile.
The snob Is pretension sheep of Panurge,
who trots along in line with all the rest,
but with an importa mt, self-sufficient
sir. Now this docility of vanity, this false
hardihood of mediocre and empty minds,
this ardor for novelties solely because
they are novel or are believed so, ell this
is very human, so, IL the word "snob-
ism," is new In the sense wherein we
employ it, the thing itself is OF all time.
There were snobs in the Hotel de Ram
bouillet, snobs an we'll as "precieux."
Cathelon and Madelon were genuine
snobinettes, the true ancestors of the
bizarre ladies you may see today in the
lobby of the Theater Libre. "It Is here
one attains the knowledge of all things
even unto the end, and the end of the
end" is the phrase of snob as well as
of an aesthetic. Madelcn spent herself in
admiration thus over the impromptu of
Msscsrille; she would do 1t today over
some invertebrate symbolic poem, and
sne would really know what she was talk
ing about just as much In the one case
as in the other. The literary snobism OF
such women In further complicated by
that OF worldliness and of the toilet, or
rather 1t il confounded with one or the
other or both, for it Is in the same spirit
precisely that they decide upon a poem
or upon the trimmings OF their gowns.
In short, they have been "inished" in
snobbery by their chosen schooling.
Another sort of snob IL of the type OF
the marquis in the Critique de PEcole
des Femmes. snob OF an Aristotle wnom
he discovered himself In the Abbe
d'Aubignac. of Aristotle and "the three
unitiss." "The three unities," which are
not in Aristotle, by the way, were very
fashionable at the time the Critique APP
peaied, great novelty, the "last ory''--
they were a little later regarded as tre-
mendous ruobisb-and the marquis stood
up for them with the same sort of senti-
ment that an ingenious little redjscket Of
1880 spst upon them with contempt.
When the court OF youthful admirers
abandoned Corneille tn take up with the
sutbor Of "Andromaehe" and Bsjazet,
there were. doubt not, snobs OF Racine,
and in the century following hsve come
snobs Of philosophy. OF Anglomsnls,
snoos of sibility," snobs of tire love
OF nature, snobs OF Rousseau and of Ber-
nardin de Saint Pierre. In the dsiries of
the Trisnon a queen played chsrningly
at the snobbery Of pastoral life. They
were snobs OF optimism who brought
about the Reign Of Terror. When have