The Vain Man

⁴⁰ It is quite otherwise with the vain man.

• He courts the company of his superiors as much as the proud man shuns it.
• He thinks that their splendour reflects a splendour on those who are around them.
• He haunts the courts of kings and the levees of ministers.
• He gives himself the air of being a candidate for fortune and preferment.

In reality, he possesses the more precious happiness of not being one, if he knew how to enjoy it. He associates himself, as much as he can, with fashionable and popular people.

The current of public favour is very uncertain. He shuns his best friends whenever public favour runs against them. He crudely recommends himself to others through:

• unnecessary ostentation,
• groundless pretensions,
• frequently flattery, though mostly pleasant and sprightly.

On the contrary, the proud man never flatters. He is frequently scarce civil to anybody.

⁴¹ Despite all its groundless pretensions, vanity is almost always a sprightly, gay, and very often a good-natured feeling. Pride is always a grave, a sullen, and a severe one. Even the falsehoods of the vain man are all innocent falsehoods, meant to raise himself, not to lower other people.

The proud man very seldom stoops to falsehood. But when he does, his falsehoods are all mischievous and meant to lower other people. He is upset at the unjust superiority he thinks is given to them and so he envies them. He often tries to lessen their superiority by making false tales to their disadvantage.

The worst falsehoods:

• of vanity are ‘white lies’
• of pride are ‘black lies’

⁴² Our dislike of pride and vanity disposes us to rank vain and proud persons below the common level. I think we are most frequently in the wrong in this judgment. The proud and the vain man are often above-average. Although they are not near:

• as the proud man really thinks himself, or
• as the vain man wishes you to think him

If we compare them with their own pretensions, they might appear as the proper objects of contempt. But when we compare them with their rivals, they may appear above-average. Where there is this real superiority, pride is frequently attended with many respectable virtues:

• truth,
• integrity,
• a high sense of honour,
• cordial and steady friendship, and
• the most inflexible firmness and resolution.

Vanity is frequently attended with many amiable virtues:

• humanity,
• politeness,
• a desire to oblige in all little matters, and
• a real generosity in great matters, sometimes.

However, vanity often wishes to display this generosity in the most splendid colours. The French in the last century were accused of vanity by their enemies. The Spaniards were accused of pride. Foreign nations were disposed to consider:

• the French as the more amiable people, and
• the Spanish as the more respectable people.

⁴³ The words ‘vain’ and ‘vanity’ are never taken in a good sense. We sometimes say that a man is the better for his vanity, when talking of him in good humour. It means his vanity is more diverting than offensive. But we still consider vanity as a foible and a ridicule in his character.

⁴⁴ On the contrary, the words ‘proud’ and ‘pride’ are sometimes taken in a good sense. We frequently say of a man, that he is too proud, or that he has too much noble pride, ever to suffer himself to do a mean thing. In this case, pride is confounded with magnanimity. Aristotle paints the character of the magnanimous man with many features which were commonly ascribed to the Spanish character in the two last centuries.

The magnanimous man:

• was deliberate in all his resolutions,
• was slow and even tardy in all his actions,
• had a grave voice and deliberate speech
• had a slow step and motion,
• appeared indolent at little matters, but acted with vigorous determination on all great, illustrious occasions,

• exposes himself to great dangers, not to little ones.

⁴⁵ The proud man is commonly too well contented with himself to think that his character needs improvement. The man who feels all-perfect, naturally despises all further improvement. From his youth until old age, he commonly feels:

• self-sufficiency, and
• an absurd conceit of his own superiority.

He dies with all his sins on his head, unanointed, unanealed. (Hamlet)

⁴⁶ It is frequently otherwise with the vain man.

The desire of other people’s esteem and admiration, for qualities and talents which are the natural and proper objects of esteem and admiration, is the real love of true glory.

It is one of the best, if not the very best feeling of human nature.

Vanity is frequently just an attempt to prematurely usurp that glory before it is due.

Your son, under 25 years old, might be vain. But do not despair of his becoming:

• a very wise and worthy man before he is 40, and
• really proficient in talents and virtues.

He might just pretend to these at present. The great secret of education is to direct vanity to proper objects. Never let him value himself on trivial accomplishments.

But do not always discourage his pretensions to really important accomplishments. He would not pretend to them if he did not earnestly want to have them. Encourage this desire. Afford him every means to facilitate the acquisition. Do not be offended even if he sometimes assumes attaining it a little before the time.

⁴⁷ Such are the distinguishing characteristics of pride and vanity, when each of them acts according to its proper character. But the proud man is often vain. The vain man is often proud.

It is most natural that:

• the man who thinks too highly of himself should wish that others think more highly of him, or
• the man who wishes others to see himself more highly than how he sees himself, should see him much more highly than he deserves.

Pride and vanity are frequently in the same character. Their characteristics are necessarily confounded. We sometimes find vanity’s superficial and impertinent ostentation joined topride’s most malignant and derisive insolence.

We are sometimes at a loss:

• how to rank a particular character, or
• whether to place a character among the proud or the vain.

⁴⁸ Men of merit who are much above the common level, sometimes underrate and overrate themselves. Such characters are not very dignified. But they are often far from being disagreeable in private society.

His companions all feel at ease with a man so perfectly modest and unassuming. If those companions do not have more discernment and generosity than ordinary, they have seldom much respect. Though they may have some kindness for him.

The warmth of their kindness is very seldom enough to compensate the coldness of their respect. Men of ordinary discernment never rate anyone higher than he rates himself.

They say that he seems doubtful himself whether he is fit for such a situation or office.

He immediately prefers some impudent blockhead who entertains around his own qualifications.

They might have discernment.

Yet if they want generosity, they never fail to:

• take advantage of his simplicity, and
• assume an impertinent superiority over him which they are by not entitled to.

His good-nature might allow him to bear this for some time.

But he frequently grows weary when:

• it is too late, and
• that rank which he should have assumed, is:
  • lost irrecoverably, and
  • usurped because of his own backwardness, by some of his more forward but less meritorious companions.

A man of this character must have been very fortunate in the early choice of his companions if=

• he is always met with fair justice even from those whom he might not consider as his best friends, from his own past kindness.

A too unassuming and unambitious youth is frequently followed by an insignificant, complaining, and discontented old age.

Idiots

⁴⁹ Those unfortunate persons whom nature has formed a good deal below the common level, sometimes seem to rate themselves below it than they really are. This humility sometimes sinks them into idiotism.

Whoever has examined idiots will find that their faculties of the understanding are not weaker than most people. Other people might be dull and stupid, but not idiots to anyone.

Many idiots, with no more than ordinary education, have been taught to read, write, and do math well.

Many non-idiots have never been able to read, write, and account despite:

• the most careful education, and
• having enough spirit to try to learn what was not taught by their early education.

However, by an instinct of pride, they set themselves at par with their equals in age and situation. With courage, they maintain their proper station among their companions.

By an opposite instinct, the idiot feels below everyone. He is extremely liable to harsh treatment which can make him angry and furious. But no good treatment, no kindness or indulgence, can ever raise him to converse with you as your equal. If you can bring him to converse with you at all, you will frequently find his answers sufficiently pertinent, and even sensible. But they are always stamped with a distinct consciousness of his own great inferiority.

He seems:

• to shrink and retire from your look and conversation,
• to feel, when he places himself in your situation, that, despite your apparent condescension, you consider him as immensely below you.

Perhaps most idiots are, chiefly from a torpidity in the faculties of the understanding. But there are other idiots, whose understanding is not more torpid than non-idiots. Pride seems totally lacking in the former and not in the latter.

⁵⁰ Therefore, the level of self-estimation which leads to one’s own happiness is also most agreeable to the impartial spectator. The man who has a moderate self-esteem seldom fails to obtain the esteem from others that he thinks is due to him.

⁵¹ On the contrary, the proud and the vain man are constantly dissatisfied. The proud man is tormented with indignation at the unjust superiority which he thinks of other people. The vain man continuously dreads the shame in the detection of his pretensions.

The real magnanimous man has little regard to the applauses of people. His extravagant pretensions impose on the people when supported by:

• splendid abilities and virtues,
• good fortune above all.

However, his pretensions do not impose on those wise men which he is trying to please. Their friendship would have given him the greatest happiness through his unsuspicious security.

⁵² Our dislike of the vain often makes us to rank them below their proper station. Yet we very seldom treat them harshly, unless we are provoked by their rudeness.

Commonly, we try to accommodate ourselves to their folly for our own ease. The man who underrates himself frequently does a great deal more injustice to himself. But, we seldom fail to do such an injustice to him, unless we have more discernment and generosity than most men.

He is more unhappy in his own feelings than the vain. He is also much more liable to harsh treatment from other people.

In almost all cases, it is better to be a little too proud than too humble. Some excess in self-estimation seems to be less disagreeable than any defect:

• to the person and
• to the impartial spectator.

⁵³ In any emotion, passion, and habit, the degree that is most agreeable to the impartial spectator is also most agreeable to the person himself.

According as the excess or the defect is least offensive to the impartial spectator, so the one or the other is proportionally least disagreeable to the person himself.