This was not to say that M. Legrandin was anything but sincere when he
inveighed against snobs. He could not (from his own knowledge, at least)
be aware that he was one also, since it is only with the passions of
others that we are ever really familiar, and what we come to find out
about our own can be no more than what other people have shewn us. Upon
ourselves they react but indirectly, through our imagination, which
substitutes for our actual, primary motives other, secondary motives, less
stark and therefore more decent. Never had Legrandin's snobbishness
impelled him to make a habit of visiting a duchess as such. Instead, it
would set his imagination to make that duchess appear, in Legrandin's
eyes, endowed with all the graces. He would be drawn towards the duchess,
assuring himself the while that he was yielding to the attractions of her
mind, and her other virtues, which the vile race of snobs could never
understand. Only his fellow-snobs knew that he was of their number, for,
owing to their inability to appreciate the intervening efforts of his
imagination, they saw in close juxtaposition the social activities of
Legrandin and their primary cause.
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