VANITY AND BLISS.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume XII, Issue 538, 30 December 1867, Page 1

VANITY AND BLISS.

(Liverpool Albion.) Is there any man living who is conscious of being a very disagreeable fellow? Certainly not ? Yet iindonho

_ ll. T i e '' u y *.ntru Ui.c a great many very disagreahle fellows in the world ; not a few, indeed, who are so disagreeable that it is difficult to account for them not perceiving it themselves. We think everybody will admit this to be fact. Whence, then, arises the moral blindness which prevents unpleasant people from knowing the estimation in which they are held by the rest of mankind? This, like matrimony, is a great mystery.

01’ course there is the question ol elective affinities, and we readily allow that it is quite possible that A, whc is utterly distasteful to B, may be considered charming by C, This holds good of both men and w'omen, and accounts for one man falling over head and e;.rs in love with a girl whom his friend considers downright ugly, though, of course he does not say so ; it also accounts for a lady’s admiring a curate, or an ensign, whom the rest of her male friends consider a prig or an ignoramus. It accounts for one man being ravished by a nez retroussd, another by tresses which some people still stigmatise as carrots, and a third by a vison of ankles, which other men pronounced to be gummy. A silent woman is one man’s vexation, and a talking woman is another man’s bane; a slender waist may be fatal to the peace of him whose susceptibilities are all unmoved by the most bounteous presence. But all these are matters of taste only, and by no means controvert or overthrow’ the proposition with which w r e started. In some minds afflicted w’ith an undue amount of self consciousness it is possible there may at times arise adimapprehension of the fact that their owmers do not enjoy any large amount of popularity, that they are not favorably appreciated by society ; but we think wo are not fai wrong in stating that this uncomfortable conviction is apt to lead to reflections on the want of good judgment on the part of the world, rather than to a feeling of inability on their part to excite agreeable emotions in the minds of others. They may remark, for instance, that they dined some time ago at a particular house, to which they have not again been invited, and in endeavouring to analyse or account for this fact they may remember that they failed conspicuously in trying to make agreeable conversation with the young lady, the daughter of the house, whom they took in to dinner; and shocked the hostess by some profane remarks ou a favorite parson, and launched into the most unfortunate topics in talking with her husband, contriving, indeed, to touch

him injuriously on a very tender place; on the whole producing a result which was a complete failure. Yet after some consideration there generally comes mental consolation for all these misfortunes.

Ingenuous youth, suffering from chronic bashfulness and distrust of its own powers—if indeed there be any youths in the present day who labor under these maladies—may now and then accuse themselves, and feel their inferiority in a social point of view, but most men who have passed the blushing age grant themselves absolution on very easy terms in this as in many other peccadilloes. They were not feeling quite well on the occasion referred to, and therefore could not display their conversational powers, which they know are considerable when they make an exertion; the young lady herself was not particularly attractive, the hostess was absurd in her ecclesiastical sympathies, and their host was, and generally is, a stupid, pompous fellow, who can hardly see a joke when any one else makes it. Under these depressing circumstances

their spirits gave way, and they were not brilliant; otherwise, and under happier auspices, they would have been as pleasant and agreeable as usual. It is a great misfortune, perhaps not. a very common one, to be imbued with a strong desire to please. To begin with, it is almost as vague and as apt to get us into scrapes as an intense admiration for the beautiful; and though if we succeed in pleasing,

both we and our friends are gratified, we suiter, if we fail, a bitter disappointment from which we should have been free, had we felt totally indifferent as to whether we pleased or not. Total inflitinrence. howftypr. it is not given to most men to enjoy. Vanity, which is in many cases the same thing as a desire to please, comes in to prevent indifference. Without the enduring and conservative virtue of vanity, some men would not give themselves the trouble of dressing for dinner, of putting on a clean shirt, or of having their boots blacked in a Christian manner; many women would go on wearing the same bonnet and dress for season after season,, would neglect their back-hair, cuffs, and frills. But Vanity, like Charity, never fails; it is one of the most useful agents in working out the comfort of mankiud, and one of the most splendid instances of the good produced by things supposed to be in themselves evil. We think there willbe little difficulty in proving this assertion. We quite believe there are plenty of men who do not consider themselves handsome, and who feel that they are not clever; but does any man who is conscious of combining these two defects in his own person on that account regard htmself as inferior to all, or even to most, men who car. value themselves on the possession of both these advantages ? By no means ! Almost every man fancies he has some distinguishing quality which takes him out of the category of contemptibles, and exalts him to at least an average with average mankind ; and probably, on the whole, thir conjecture is not far from the truth. Most people will likely allow that they cannot speak like Mr Gladstone, or write like John Henry Newsman, that they are not as handsome as Lord Cautilupe, nor as rich as Uolhscbild ; that they cannot make as good puns as Sydney Smith, nor take credit for having us much pluck as Tom Sayers or a Victoria Cross man ; yet even supposing them inferior in pluck, puns, riches, good looks, fiue writing, and line oratory, their happiness is not lessened, nor their selfappreciation lowered, by clearly perceiving theirdeiicieucy in these matters. Every one in this country is constantly engaged in looking d wn ou somebody else. This is a result of our aristocratic institutions, and still more of our aristocratic proclivities. The duke looks down on the baronet, the baronet ou the squire, the squire on the merchant, the merchant ou the shopkeeper, the great shopkeeper despises the small trader, who avenges himself on the artisan, and the artisan entertains a lively contempt for the huckster ; and if certain small insects, nameless in polite circles, have smaller nameless insects to bite them, possibly vagrants and beggars have their aristotratio differences—and so on ad inf niturn. This power or habit of looking down is one of the great happinesses of English life, a sort of set-off against the climate—and if we deduct the items of want of food, cold, nakedness, and pain, which are not got over even by the luxury of knowing that there is some one iumgrier, colder, more naked, and more suffering than yourself, we are half-inclined to think that, in spite of the enormous differences of condition and fortune in this country, there is a sort of average felicity amongst us. And so, may we not rejoice in the words, if not in the spirit, of the preacher, and cry, with great satisfaction, “ Vanity of vanities —all is vanity ?”