VANITY!

Northern Advocate, 12 June 1926, Page 10

VANITY!

WHO HAS IT MOST? 1 Arc men vainer than women? Certainly they are more self-conscious and more conventional than women on the whole, and self-consciousness i often argues a subconscious vanity. If women are vain it is not to bo wondered at in view of their upbringing (writes Lady Norah Ecntinck in the “Daily Mail"). Little girls are always dressed up, photographed, made to sell programmes, ; act as bridesmaids, and take 1 part in tableaux vivants, so r if their thoughts turn unduly upon themselves and their perI sonal appearance they can hardly be 1 blamed. Besides, it is all part of the ' great universal cult of the feminine, > for while not ignoring or belittling ! intellect, beauty always will remain ! | woman’s greatest asset.

But with men it is not so. Little boys are not brought up with the idea, as little girls so often arc, that their looks, their hair, their clothes, their manners aie immensely important—-

simply because they are not. Aten are in such a. minority that they do not need to ho particularly beautiful, clever, or amusing to And plenty of partners at dances and games—which is possibly the very fact which makes them vain.

The preponderance of girls, a. rather tragic phenomenon in its way, needs no statistical demonstration these days. Girls go about everywhere to-gether—-to race meeting, to theatres, and to dances, at all of which they sit disconsolately like “patience smiling at grief." Can it he wondered that the pessimistic woman regards eligible men ns being as rare as the great auk’s egg and as slippery as eels?

As dances loom in the distance the cheeks of hostesses pale at the difficulty of collecting men for their party and the greater difficulty of inducing them to come when they have accepted. Girls always turn up, hut men

. . . you can never be sure of them till the very last moment, and even then one need not be .surprised at the receipt of a laconic telegram. As the young men, whatever their sins, still

receive dozens of invitations is it any wonder that some of theta grow vain? A couple were once arguing as to which sox was the vainer, and a woman offered to prove that men were. She was the last to enter the draw-ing-room before dinner that night, and,, as she came into the room she sail * in a loud voice, “The best-looking man in the room has his tie under his left ear." Every nian’s right hand flew to his left ear.