I hope that I have said nothing which will offend. There is grave
danger in that. There is the danger that I may drive some of my more
sensitive readers to uncommon activities which will make them more
ridiculous than ever. It is to be hoped that I have dealt with them
carefully. I have tried to avoid being too didactic. I have tried to
tell the wallflowers that even if they are not popular, there is no
particular reason for deploring the situation.
And in that essay there is some mighty dangerous material. Probably
I should not have said that the chemicals of pride and vanity and
cleverness will carry one on to fame but, from quiet observation, that
is what they seem to do.
I could go on for hours about the dangers of being too outwardly proud
or vain. I think however, that a few paragraphs on this subject will be
quite enough.
Pride is dangerous only when it insults the intelligence. Self-respect
when it descends into self-conceit can make an ass of the most worthy
person on earth. Pride is the quality which makes one feel that one is
living and accomplishing something in this earth which, though it may
not benefit humanity or, particularly, posterity, is certainly making
the greatest number of contemporaries happy and contented. Pride it is
that makes man go about this earth trying to understand just what is
wrong with things as they are and trying to remedy them to the best of
his meager abilities.
But vanity! Ah, sweet vanity! What great things she has done for
this unlovely world. She has made women beautiful. She has made men
stronger. She has made humor. She has fostered literature. She has made
fame and vice and above all she has made love.
I could not urge one to adopt a more useful thing than vanity. It was
an old and dying man who said: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”
Only an old and dying man could say that vanity is useless. Even vanity
has its usages. Even vanity is to be sought near and far.
And cleverness? Ah, lads and ladies, that is something else again.
Cleverness so far as I see it is only a matter of practice. Children
are not born to it; they acquire it by long specialization.
So in parting, dearly beloved wallflowers, let me add to this already
garbled bit of advice a plea for pride and vanity. If you find that
they are latent within you, for the love of all that is bad and unholy,
culture and tend them with care. As the youth in school so ably
misquoted: “Young man, if you have a spark of genius, water it.”