VANITY AND BLISS.

Hawke's Bay Weekly Times, Volume 1, Issue 52, 30 December 1867, Page 323

VANITY AND BLISS.

\ 4(K ve u Aibion.J ,• ’ T^vir Is there any man living who is" conscious of being. a. very disagreeable fellow?; .Certainly: not ?, , Yet, undoubtedly. jthere, are ,a. great- many" very disa'greable fellows in the world; not h.few; indeed.,, who are so disagreeable that -it is* difficult to account for< them noty/perceiving, it themselves. 'We think «very tody .will admit this to be fact, j '‘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.

Of. course there is the question of elective affinities, and we readily allow that it is quite possible that A, who is utterly distasteful to B, may be considered charmingby C. This holds good of both men and women, and accounts for one man falling over head and ears 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 au 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 vi?on 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 we started. In some minds afflicted with an undue amount of self consciousness it is possible there may at times arise a dim apprehension of. the fact that their qwners do not enjoy any large amount of popularity, that they are not favorably appreciated by society; but we think we are not far wrong in stating that this uncomfortable conviction is apt to lead to reflections on v - 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 iu 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 on 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. • ■ v

Ingenuous youth, suffering from chronic bashfulness and distrust of its own powers—if indeed there he 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 ou 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 a stupid,' pompous fellow, who can hardly see a joke when any'bile else makes it. Under these depressing circumstances their spirits gave way,'and‘ they‘ were not brilliant; otherwise; add under happier ‘auspices, they would < have been as pleasant-and: agreeable ; as lisiial. It is a - great ; misfortune, perhaps nbt-a very common one, .to be imbued, with a'strong desire to 'please; $0’ §:?gib,with;> it is Almost; as /vague dod as apt; ‘to^get ? us into 1 an int^s^^ffi^atibn;fprthe*bea;utiful"; add though 1 if we succeed in* pleasing, v, io;s ;

friends are gratified, : ;We fail, it bitter disapijsStohrtdmt from whicli'we should have, been ffree, had we felt;-totally indifferent,.as -to^ltetlier, iv&pleased• dr mot.. Total indifference, however,'it is ! not jgiyen to. mbstimen > .lo';enjoy.’ ; Vanity, 1 ; 'which,is in many; cases the same thing' jas a desire to pleaseHfjqmes in to', pre-t vent' the en-“ during and conservative virtue of’ Vanity, some men iwould 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 mankind, and one of the most splendid instances of the good produced by things supposed to be in themselves evil. We think there will be little difficulty in proving this assertion. We quite believe there are plenty of men who do not consider themselves handsome, and who feel tha» viioj 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 can value themselves on the possession of both these advantages ? B y 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 Newman, that they are not as handsome as Lord Cantilupe, nor as rich as Rothschild ; that they cannot make as good puns as Sydney Smith, nor take credit for having as much pluck as Tom Sayers or a Victoria Cross man ; yet even supposing them inferior in pluck, puns, riches; good looks, fine writing, and fine oratory, their, happiness is not lessened, nor their selfappreciation lowered, by clearly perceiving their deficiency in these matters. Every one in this country is constantly engaged in looking d wn on somebody else. This is a result of our aristocratic institutions, and still more of our aristocratic proclivities. The duke looks down on the barouet, the baronet ou the, squire, the squire on the merchant, the merchant on 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 infinitum. 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 hungrier, 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 hot rejoice in the words, if not..iii the spirit, of ;the preacher, arid cry, with great satisfaction, “Vanity of vanities—ail is vanity ?”