Indecent displays of wealth, as a character of parvenus, arouses suspicion and contempt among the pure-bloods. The poor, as soon as they arrive, usually adopt one of two attitudes: one; they hold wealth (or rather, money and other tokens of wealth) with a cistern’s watertight retention, letting in and not letting out. It is as if they are oblivious to their changed circumstance, and their spending habits are unchanged. They become miserly. Two; they acquire the trappings of the rich with an unbridled passion, and little reserve. They ignore the rich’s pickiness, their picky sense, and without this understanding, the newly-minted moneybags exhibit an atavism of the rich (which they have probably become embarrassed over): the uncritical drive to fill a stomach or a storehouse.
The new money may just stop short of wearing a mismatched pair of expensive shoes, one blood red and the other shocking pink, so that he makes unmistakably clear to all that not only can he afford luxury, he can twice over. This dissociation from lack, this lack of elitist modesty, is particularly galling to and scorned by the rich. The rich will find it easier to accept the newly rich becoming a miser, as this attitude is more in keeping with his humble background.
The miser stores the tokens of the rich, but never gives himself the permission to redeem them. In some sense, he is still trapped in the mental cage of the rich. His fear of scarcity is so ingrained and crippling that he increases his potential for acquiring plenty but never utilizes it. (The corollary to this miserly nature is almost always money-lending. Because this poor is held in thrall by the tokens, the rich who have a system of redeeming them become the new money’s conditional friend, or partner. The rich take the tokens, contracting to return more tokens at a later date to the miserly new money, an exciting proposition for one whose aspiration is to increase tokens).
The spendthrift does the opposite. He converts the tokens at an alarming rate, mostly for trinkets (i.e., things whose value is not sanctioned by the aristocratic peer group), mostly because he doesn’t know better. This expenditure is disturbing for the rich even though it shouldn’t be for there is really no reservoir with a bottomless capacity, and any heedless spending is bound to hit a dry spell. The rich are disturbed because the newly rich’s indiscriminate redeeming of said tokens challenges the established value system that prevailed before.
On the whole, however, the well-off rich hardly ever concerns himself with the up-and-coming; he often leaves this occupation to his less fortunate relative, he whose sun is setting, fallen on hard times. On his back lies the onerous task of gatekeeper. Also, on his back is always the garb of his slipping status, threadbare because he has to wear it doubly long, so that the memory of his status does not fade quickly from the mind of others, and sometimes because he lacks a fresh change. His sensitivity to his shifty foothold sharpens his sense of snobbery to a pinpoint. There are a myriad points of niceties to fault the newcomers and he is fastidious on them all. His condescension does not sting the newly rich as it should; the newcomer’s handy riposte, that his nose tells him the has-been can no longer afford rosewater, puts them on equal footing. This middle ground, way-station for ascending and descending both, is a lively-contested area bounding rich from poor. It allows those secure in patrimony and pedigree above space to take much-needed breaks from the harness of their station (for wealth and status can be as limiting as it grants privilege) every now and then. Also, from their mutual ridicule comes a begrudging but genuine mutual respect and attraction—and the chance for a more practical and aptly assessed inter-class intercourse. The marriage of the miserly moneylender and the impecunious privileged produces the banker of fine manners who will sit, perfectly camouflaged, among royals.