APOLOGY FOR VANITY

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 60, 4 December 1926, Page 24

APOLOGY FOR VANITY

Vanity is as old as the human race and counted a chief failing of the gentler sox. the daughters of Eve rather than the sons of Adam being accused of it. And this despite the fact that from the fig trees of Eden Io the shops of Bond Street both sons and daughters have mostly shared and shared alike (ears Dr. Francis Aveling. in the "Daily Mail")

Clothes in every age have been made not to cover only but to adorn. Cowries ind pearls are not merely forms of portable property. Yet the vanity of man differs much from that of woman Men. as a rule, do not powder their noses or deftly wield the lip-stick:, they carry no mirrors in .lainty vanity bags or scraps of filmy lace instead of manageable handkerchiefs. Tn the main, their satisfaction in themselves, is of a sterner quality—often of the body hut more often of the mind. Men are vain of their real or fancied achievements, physical prowess or mental superiority, and their vanity generincreases with their age- whereas women’s generally does not. A vain voting thing may be charming: a vain old woman is a rarity, fortunately, for she would be appalling. But vain old men—and there are many -are ridiculous. At their time of hie

they ought to know better, for then the usefulness of vanity—as women realise—has gone. They are merely insufferable bores . . "Vain as a peacock I ’ Since we read Into the “minds” of bird* and animals only what we find within our own we may well learn of peacocks Nature has given to them what we must often procure somehow - for ourselves And who but a male moralist, grown old tn moralising- foi moralists are all old men when they shoot their parthian shots al female' vanities—would censure Nature? , , Vanity and the adornment and poses of vanity serve Nature’s ends. The peacock is not truly "vain” when the gprgenus display of his argosy secures tor him a mate, but the urge of vanity m man achieves the same goal In most animaH what passes thus tor vanity is found in males In man It is blended with coyness in the female. It serves its racial purpose and is wholly ” ThV male variety of vanity-having a good opinion of oneself—if a man lives up to it makes for effort and achievement. and so serves both individual and race The only kind of useless and therefore insufferable vanity is the outworn relic of an overestimated past which holds no promise for the future.