All is vanity and everybody's vain. Women are terribly vain. So are
men--more so, if possible. So are children, particularly children. One
of them at this very moment is hammering upon my legs. She wants to know
what I think of her new shoes. Candidly I don't think much of them.
They lack symmetry and curve and possess an indescribable appearance of
lumpiness (I believe, too, they've put them on the wrong feet). But I
don't say this. It is not criticism, but flattery that she wants; and I
gush over them with what I feel to myself to be degrading effusiveness.
Nothing else would satisfy this self-opinionated cherub. I tried the
conscientious-friend dodge with her on one occasion, but it was not
a success. She had requested my judgment upon her general conduct and
behavior, the exact case submitted being, "Wot oo tink of me? Oo peased
wi' me?" and I had thought it a good opportunity to make a few salutary
remarks upon her late moral career, and said: "No, I am not pleased with
you." I recalled to her mind the events of that very morning, and I put
it to her how she, as a Christian child, could expect a wise and good
uncle to be satisfied with the carryings on of an infant who that very
day had roused the whole house at five AM.; had upset a water-jug and
tumbled downstairs after it at seven; had endeavored to put the cat in
the bath at eight; and sat on her own father's hat at nine thirty-five.
What did she do? Was she grateful to me for my plain speaking? Did she
ponder upon my words and determine to profit by them and to lead from
that hour a better and nobler life?
No! she howled.
That done, she became abusive. She said:
"Oo naughty--oo naughty, bad unkie--oo bad man--me tell MAR."
And she did, too.
Since then, when my views have been called for I have kept my real
sentiments more to myself like, preferring to express unbounded
admiration of this young person's actions, irrespective of their actual
merits. And she nods her head approvingly and trots off to advertise my
opinion to the rest of the household. She appears to employ it as a sort
of testimonial for mercenary purposes, for I subsequently hear
distant sounds of "Unkie says me dood dirl--me dot to have two bikkies
[biscuits]."
There she goes, now, gazing rapturously at her own toes and murmuring
"pittie"--two-foot-ten of conceit and vanity, to say nothing of other
wickednesses.
They are all alike. I remember sitting in a garden one sunny afternoon
in the suburbs of London. Suddenly I heard a shrill treble voice calling
from a top-story window to some unseen being, presumably in one of the
other gardens, "Gamma, me dood boy, me wery good boy, gamma; me dot on
Bob's knickiebockies."
Why, even animals are vain. I saw a great Newfoundland dog the other
day sitting in front of a mirror at the entrance to a shop in Regent's
Circus, and examining himself with an amount of smug satisfaction that I
have never seen equaled elsewhere outside a vestry meeting.
I was at a farm-house once when some high holiday was being celebrated.
I don't remember what the occasion was, but it was something festive,
a May Day or Quarter Day, or something of that sort, and they put a
garland of flowers round the head of one of the cows. Well, that absurd
quadruped went about all day as perky as a schoolgirl in a new frock;
and when they took the wreath off she became quite sulky, and they had
to put it on again before she would stand still to be milked. This is
not a Percy anecdote. It is plain, sober truth.
As for cats, they nearly equal human beings for vanity. I have known
a cat get up and walk out of the room on a remark derogatory to her
species being made by a visitor, while a neatly turned compliment will
set them purring for an hour.
I do like cats. They are so unconsciously amusing. There is such a comic
dignity about them, such a "How dare you!" "Go away, don't touch me"
sort of air. Now, there is nothing haughty about a dog. They are "Hail,
fellow, well met" with every Tom, Dick, or Harry that they come
across. When I meet a dog of my acquaintance I slap his head, call him
opprobrious epithets, and roll him over on his back; and there he lies,
gaping at me, and doesn't mind it a bit.
Fancy carrying on like that with a cat! Why, she would never speak to
you again as long as you lived. No, when you want to win the approbation
of a cat you must mind what you are about and work your way carefully.
If you don't know the cat, you had best begin by saying, "Poor pussy."
After which add "did 'ums" in a tone of soothing sympathy. You don't
know what you mean any more than the cat does, but the sentiment
seems to imply a proper spirit on your part, and generally touches her
feelings to such an extent that if you are of good manners and passable
appearance she will stick her back up and rub her nose against you.
Matters having reached this stage, you may venture to chuck her under
the chin and tickle the side of her head, and the intelligent creature
will then stick her claws into your legs; and all is friendship and
affection, as so sweetly expressed in the beautiful lines--
"I love little pussy, her coat is so warm,
And if I don't tease her she'll do me no harm;
So I'll stroke her, and pat her, and feed her with food,
And pussy will love me because I am good."
The last two lines of the stanza give us a pretty true insight into
pussy's notions of human goodness. It is evident that in her opinion
goodness consists of stroking her, and patting her, and feeding her with
food. I fear this narrow-minded view of virtue, though, is not confined
to pussies. We are all inclined to adopt a similar standard of merit in
our estimate of other people. A good man is a man who is good to us, and
a bad man is a man who doesn't do what we want him to. The truth is,
we each of us have an inborn conviction that the whole world, with
everybody and everything in it, was created as a sort of necessary
appendage to ourselves. Our fellow men and women were made to admire us
and to minister to our various requirements. You and I, dear reader, are
each the center of the universe in our respective opinions. You, as I
understand it, were brought into being by a considerate Providence in
order that you might read and pay me for what I write; while I, in your
opinion, am an article sent into the world to write something for you
to read. The stars--as we term the myriad other worlds that are rushing
down beside us through the eternal silence--were put into the heavens
to make the sky look interesting for us at night; and the moon with its
dark mysteries and ever-hidden face is an arrangement for us to flirt
under.
I fear we are most of us like Mrs. Poyser's bantam cock, who fancied the
sun got up every morning to hear him crow. "'Tis vanity that makes the
world go round." I don't believe any man ever existed without vanity,
and if he did he would be an extremely uncomfortable person to have
anything to do with. He would, of course, be a very good man, and we
should respect him very much. He would be a very admirable man--a man
to be put under a glass case and shown round as a specimen--a man to be
stuck upon a pedestal and copied, like a school exercise--a man to be
reverenced, but not a man to be loved, not a human brother whose hand we
should care to grip. Angels may be very excellent sort of folk in their
way, but we, poor mortals, in our present state, would probably find
them precious slow company. Even mere good people are rather depressing.
It is in our faults and failings, not in our virtues, that we touch
one another and find sympathy. We differ widely enough in our nobler
qualities. It is in our follies that we are at one. Some of us are
pious, some of us are generous. Some few of us are honest, comparatively
speaking; and some, fewer still, may possibly be truthful. But in vanity
and kindred weaknesses we can all join hands. Vanity is one of those
touches of nature that make the whole world kin. From the Indian hunter,
proud of his belt of scalps, to the European general, swelling beneath
his row of stars and medals; from the Chinese, gleeful at the length of
his pigtail, to the "professional beauty," suffering tortures in order
that her waist may resemble a peg-top; from draggle-tailed little Polly
Stiggins, strutting through Seven Dials with a tattered parasol over her
head, to the princess sweeping through a drawing-room with a train of
four yards long; from 'Arry, winning by vulgar chaff the loud laughter
of his pals, to the statesman whose ears are tickled by the cheers
that greet his high-sounding periods; from the dark-skinned African,
bartering his rare oils and ivory for a few glass beads to hang about
his neck, to the Christian maiden selling her white body for a score of
tiny stones and an empty title to tack before her name--all march, and
fight, and bleed, and die beneath its tawdry flag.
Ay, ay, vanity is truly the motive-power that moves humanity, and it
is flattery that greases the wheels. If you want to win affection and
respect in this world, you must flatter people. Flatter high and low,
and rich and poor, and silly and wise. You will get on famously. Praise
this man's virtues and that man's vices. Compliment everybody upon
everything, and especially upon what they haven't got. Admire guys for
their beauty, fools for their wit, and boors for their breeding. Your
discernment and intelligence will be extolled to the skies.
Every one can be got over by flattery. The belted earl--"belted earl" is
the correct phrase, I believe. I don't know what it means, unless it be
an earl that wears a belt instead of braces. Some men do. I don't like
it myself. You have to keep the thing so tight for it to be of any use,
and that is uncomfortable. Anyhow, whatever particular kind of an earl
a belted earl may be, he is, I assert, get-overable by flattery; just as
every other human being is, from a duchess to a cat's-meat man, from a
plow boy to a poet--and the poet far easier than the plowboy, for butter
sinks better into wheaten bread than into oaten cakes.
As for love, flattery is its very life-blood. Fill a person with love
for themselves, and what runs over will be your share, says a certain
witty and truthful Frenchman whose name I can't for the life of me
remember. (Confound it! I never can remember names when I want to.) Tell
a girl she is an angel, only more angelic than an angel; that she is
a goddess, only more graceful, queenly, and heavenly than the average
goddess; that she is more fairy-like than Titania, more beautiful than
Venus, more enchanting than Parthenope; more adorable, lovely, and
radiant, in short, than any other woman that ever did live, does live,
or could live, and you will make a very favorable impression upon her
trusting little heart. Sweet innocent! she will believe every word you
say. It is so easy to deceive a woman--in this way.
Dear little souls, they hate flattery, so they tell you; and when you
say, "Ah, darling, it isn't flattery in your case, it's plain, sober
truth; you really are, without exaggeration, the most beautiful, the
most good, the most charming, the most divine, the most perfect human
creature that ever trod this earth," they will smile a quiet, approving
smile, and, leaning against your manly shoulder, murmur that you are a
dear good fellow after all.
By Jove! fancy a man trying to make love on strictly truthful
principles, determining never to utter a word of mere compliment or
hyperbole, but to scrupulously confine himself to exact fact! Fancy his
gazing rapturously into his mistress' eyes and whispering softly to her
that she wasn't, on the whole, bad-looking, as girls went! Fancy his
holding up her little hand and assuring her that it was of a light drab
color shot with red; and telling her as he pressed her to his heart that
her nose, for a turned-up one, seemed rather pretty; and that her eyes
appeared to him, as far as he could judge, to be quite up to the average
standard of such things!
A nice chance he would stand against the man who would tell her that her
face was like a fresh blush rose, that her hair was a wandering sunbeam
imprisoned by her smiles, and her eyes like two evening stars.
There are various ways of flattering, and, of course, you must adapt
your style to your subject. Some people like it laid on with a trowel,
and this requires very little art. With sensible persons, however, it
needs to be done very delicately, and more by suggestion than actual
words. A good many like it wrapped up in the form of an insult, as--"Oh,
you are a perfect fool, you are. You would give your last sixpence to
the first hungry-looking beggar you met;" while others will swallow it
only when administered through the medium of a third person, so that if
C wishes to get at an A of this sort, he must confide to A's particular
friend B that he thinks A a splendid fellow, and beg him, B, not to
mention it, especially to A. Be careful that B is a reliable man,
though, otherwise he won't.
Those fine, sturdy John Bulls who "hate flattery, sir," "Never let
anybody get over me by flattery," etc., etc., are very simply managed.
Flatter them enough upon their absence of vanity, and you can do what
you like with them.
After all, vanity is as much a virtue as a vice. It is easy to recite
copy-book maxims against its sinfulness, but it is a passion that can
move us to good as well as to evil. Ambition is only vanity ennobled. We
want to win praise and admiration--or fame as we prefer to name it--and
so we write great books, and paint grand pictures, and sing sweet songs;
and toil with willing hands in study, loom, and laboratory.
We wish to become rich men, not in order to enjoy ease and comfort--all
that any one man can taste of those may be purchased anywhere for 200
pounds per annum--but that our houses may be bigger and more gaudily
furnished than our neighbors'; that our horses and servants may be
more numerous; that we may dress our wives and daughters in absurd
but expensive clothes; and that we may give costly dinners of which we
ourselves individually do not eat a shilling's worth. And to do this we
aid the world's work with clear and busy brain, spreading commerce among
its peoples, carrying civilization to its remotest corners.
Do not let us abuse vanity, therefore. Rather let us use it. Honor
itself is but the highest form of vanity. The instinct is not confined
solely to Beau Brummels and Dolly Vardens. There is the vanity of the
peacock and the vanity of the eagle. Snobs are vain. But so, too, are
heroes. Come, oh! my young brother bucks, let us be vain together. Let
us join hands and help each other to increase our vanity. Let us be
vain, not of our trousers and hair, but of brave hearts and working
hands, of truth, of purity, of nobility. Let us be too vain to stoop
to aught that is mean or base, too vain for petty selfishness and
little-minded envy, too vain to say an unkind word or do an unkind act.
Let us be vain of being single-hearted, upright gentlemen in the
midst of a world of knaves. Let us pride ourselves upon thinking high
thoughts, achieving great deeds, living good lives.