It is the common thing among people of little consequence to look upon
the proud and vain with eyes of envy and disapproval. I have chosen
to conclude my advice to wallflowers with this little essay because
I feel that they need to know that these two qualities, of all other
qualities, are the best to have or to acquire.
Alchemy was the medieval science of chemistry, the main object of which
was to learn formulas or to discover formulas for changing base metals
into gold. Another object of alchemy was to discover a universal cure
for all ills and a means for prolonging life indefinitely. It was an
art in its beginning. The fine art of vanity. It was fostered by the
great of the earth because of their excessive prides. They felt, no
doubt, that the earth would be a very sorry place without their minds
and genius to guide it.
Witness the sad story of Faust, an alchemist, who sold his very soul
for youth. Of course, in this unregenerate age of agnosticism nothing
of the sort could happen. We are vain, of course, and we want youth but
we have no credulous souls to barter for that youth. However, we have
retained two very human chemicals which will do more to make us great
than any of the medieval formulas. They are Pride and Vanity.
There grew in the world along with alchemy a philosophy of humbleness.
It was a very unhealthy philosophy, this metaphysics of denial. And
what has it ever done for the individual man? It has made great droves
of the lowly satisfied with their unhappy lot. It has made it quite
easy for those who have discovered the chemicals, pride and vanity, to
conquer this earth.
This humbleness! What is there in it? These moral scruples that the
humble have taken great pride in accruing to themselves? Ah, the idiocy
of these things. Humble man has said that he being less than God is
nothing. He has assumed that he is above the animal but being thus
above, he has concluded, is nothing. He has screamed at the great earth
that God has a place for him in heaven. Of course, say the humble, it
is a lowly place at the feet of God but it is nevertheless a place in
heaven. Think of that lovely propaganda. It is we, the proud and vain,
who have made the humble. We have said in a variety of places that it
is the humble who inherit the kingdom of heaven. We have told them that
they will come to the feet of God but at the same time we have taken
no stock in the belief. We have lived happy, contented, rational lives
on this earth with our rubies and diamonds and sapphires and emeralds
and our golden crowns and our silver thrones and our halls of marble
and porphyr. We have cleansed our bodies with sweet scented waters,
oiled them with unguents from Palestine, clothed them with silks from
the Levant. And what else? We have grown plump and beautiful on the
richness of this earth and we have enjoyed all these things because we
were too indolent to worry about your Gods.
But that is not all. We have kept you, the humble, grovelling with our
fables about humbleness. We have made you see that somewhere somehow
you would acquire the ease and luxury of our existence and be happy.
Often and often one of the humble sees clearly that all is not as it
should be upon this earth. We will say that you, the humble one whom
I am addressing, is that very person. Already you have had dreams of
an earthly Utopia. Already you have understood that man is an animal
and a rather superior animal at that, and that there is no particular
reason why he should humble himself before anything. Already you have
seen that the great in spite of their excessive pride, grovel before
something even greater. In casting about, you soon discover that it is
the approving smile of the humble to which they are bowing down.
“And why do they bow so low and why do the humble bow even lower to
them?”
It is a very simple secret. The humble have made them and the humble
are only children with dreams and fantasies. I know I have just said
that the proud and vain are the great. I should have said that the
proud and vain and clever are the great.
And that chemical is, of the three, the most important. To be full of
pride without being clever is very dangerous. Why did I not mention
that? Possibly because I am not very clever myself.
But already I have been guilty of a paradox. I have said that the great
of earth have made the humble and that the humble have made the great.
What kind of a statement is that? A paradox, pure and simple! Yet it
is true. In the beginning it was the mental credulity and ignorance of
the humble who raised the clever to the heights of the great and it was
the clever, become great, who in their turn made the humble more humble
than ever.
We have said that you, who were humble, have seen the error of all this
and, being clever, have decided to do away with the false barriers
that the great have thrown about you. You come to me, who have always
known you and your family to be of the worthiest stock in the country,
and you tell me that I am nothing but a gay colored balloon. I start
rather violently to object to what you have just said. I bluster and
object that I can do such and such a thing a little better than any
other person on earth. I tell you that I am a very clever fellow. And
then you say to me: “Look here, old fellow, you have misunderstood me
entirely. I am not trying to puncture you; I am just telling you what
you are and admiring you for it. I am not one of those who would run
about shouting wild socialistic folderol. I hold no brief with the
socialists, anyway. No, old dear, I merely came to tell you that I know
what is up your sleeve and that I want you to tell me where to buy one
for myself.”
With that I breathe a happy sigh and smile upon you and ask you what
you can do. You name over several things and I clap upon one and say to
you that I know of a man who needs somebody who can do just that. Then
I add: “But remember this, my lad, whether you are more than passably
clever at that sort of thing, don’t for a minute let anybody think that
you feel yourself incapable of doing it. The thing to do is to get what
you want and then learn how to do it at your leisure.”
And you go away and take my advice and we admire each other and say
great things about each other and credit each other with virtues that
we don’t pretend to have. Years later we may meet each other again and
you will say to me: “I am doing very nicely with so and so. Oh, by the
way, I have been wanting to tell you that I have taken on one of the
haughtiest masks in the world, lately. I see clearly now that we cannot
afford to give up our little secrets, they are too damn dangerous in
the hands of the humble.” You have become vain and proud and clever.
This matter of cleverness that I mentioned above has to do with the
very simplest of human factors. In the beginning, I said the humble
made the clever great and the clever, become suddenly great, had in
their turn made the humble humbler still. The clever have seen from the
beginning they must perfect themselves in at least one of the admired
qualities of the humble. They must, to become great, be the most
clever sorcerers or the best dancers or the finest talkers or the best
aviators or the most subtle actors of their race. They know that it is
simple to make the humble adore them if they take one or more of the
better qualities of the humble and accentuate them.
They may discover that the humble like to be fooled. They may find
that they have certain mental quirks that make whatever they choose to
say, thought wise. They may discover that they have learned more than
anybody else about all the great literature or painting on this earth.
They may find that they have the ability for giving the humble a wide
and sane attitude toward life. But, having discovered this, do they
give out all their secrets? They do not. They guard them with their
very lives. If they are most wise they tell only half of what they have
learned.
Some there are who, coming suddenly to this understanding, have wanted
to spread it near and far in some form or other. They have soon
discovered that the humble do not want to hear these things. The
humble want to believe that these people are geniuses and that they
themselves could never aspire to such heights. Nor do they care to.
Being children they choose to believe their fairy tales and legends.
They trust that some kind genie will come to them and say: “You have
been chosen. You are the man of the hour. You can do thus and so better
than your brother. I have come to heap the rewards of earth about your
arm chair. You are chosen.”
Sometimes, as I have said, this very thing takes place but you must be
clever enough to recognize it at its true value.
I have said all these things to the wallflowers because I wanted them
to see that being like everybody else is not what one should call a
very desirable quality. Most wallflowers have some difference. There is
an occult quality in them which they deplore. They should not. They are
for that very quality most fortunate. If they will soon recognize that
they are just a little out of tune, that they are not common, that they
are unusual, they will find that they, when they have discovered this,
have ceased to be wallflowers.