character of others. Madam Snob will entertain you with a long account
of her family connections. Poor soul she is constantly resurrecting the
remains of dead and gone ancestors; her life is spent in the charnel
house, being very careful however, to let the remains of a certain few
rest in peace, while she rattles the dry bones of her favored ones in
our face, until we are tempted to cry "peace." At last our curiosity is
aroused, and we make inquiries as to these noble ancestors, and find the
overwhelming fact--that they had been born! and that they had died! very
noble of them to have been born, and very heroic, to have died. If the
successors would follow their illustrious example in the last act, the
world would still exist. But you say "this is harmless and only another
form of idiocy." True if it stopped there, no harm would be done. But
did any one ever know Madam Snob to stop there? After having visited her
family vault, you are requested to enter the abode of your neighbor's
dead, and then your turn will come next and you are asked by madam to
unearth your dead. Now to people who know little and care less about
their great, great, great grandfather, all this is very amusing. If the
Bible be true, and who can doubt it? there was an ark built in which
God's chosen were placed for safety. Now any one is safe in saying "my
ancestry dates from the ark" but I think it would be rather difficult
for a person to trace their ancestry from the time the chosen few
stepped from the ark to dry land, down to the present time. But every
one has some imagination, and in order to gratify Madam Snob's
curiosity, just make use of it. Tell her some were hanged, some were
drowned, some were in prison for debt, one fought in the War of the
Roses, one was killed in a street brawl, another hanged for treason.
Tell her--well tell her anything that will satisfy her curiosity, for
there are times when an elastic conscience is excusable. There is
another Madam Snob, who not knowing in the slightest degree what
constitutes a lady, is ignorant of the fact that a lady is civil to