Now the fundamental truth to be grasped about vanity is that it is always found in conjunction with modesty. It is the intense modesty of the vain person that forces him to gratify his vanity at every turn.
What, then, is modesty? In ultimate practice it amounts to an inability to set a value on oneself, an inability to place oneself according to one’s worth in the graduated hierarchy of human beings. The modest man waits to be given his place, to be told where he stands, to be priced and valued by his fellow-men. Compliments mean a good deal to him, because, since he has no settled opinion of himself, they promote his self-esteem. In short, his self-esteem fluctuates according to his receipts in compliments and abuse. And since his good spirits depend largely upon his self-esteem, his spirits may also be said to fluctuate according to these receipts. Unlike his proud brother, he does not hold a good or poor opinion of himself because of an inner conviction of his worth, which is settled; he holds it because he has been modest enough to wait for the world to give it to him.
But this makes him entirely dependent upon his fellow-men for his knowledge of his worth, and consequently for the condition of his spirits. By throwing him always upon the judgment of his fellows for his opinion of himself and his good spirits, his modesty therefore tends to lead the modest man into the constant practice of trying to seduce his fellow-men to such an opinion of himself as will not cause his spirits to suffer. He covets good opinions, because on them alone can his self-esteem, and therefore his good spirits, thrive. In order to enjoy that comfortable feeling of satisfaction which promoted self-esteem affords, he is constantly tempted to persuade his fellow-men into giving it to him. This makes him amenable, and what the modern world calls “lovable,” because he glows under compliments, and becomes pliable and susceptible to influence, and by the side of him his proud inflexible brother appears to the modern world as cold and inaccessible.[99] The vain man asks: “What did So-and-so say of me?” or “What did So-and-so think of me?” And according to the answer he receives he is either happy or depressed.
The proud man does not care what So-and-so thinks of him. He is not concerned with public opinion. He knows his own good and bad points, and no views about himself, entertained by his fellows, can modify that knowledge one way or the other. Consequently he is not always busy trying to seduce his circle of relatives, friends, and acquaintances into a good opinion of him. This makes him stiff, independent, unamenable, and dignified—in fact, everything that the modern world is least able to tolerate with patience.
The modest man lives in his neighbour’s views of himself. He depends on them for his self-esteem, and therefore for his joie de vivre. On these views he measures his worth. It is only human, therefore, that he should be anxious to make them as favourable as possible.
Now it is this constant effort to make these views as favourable as possible, and the pleasure he feels over the success of his efforts, that constitute the characteristic known as “vanity,” for which the modest man is notorious. It is obvious that when no other deeper motives interfere—as in the case of all those people whom I call negative, and whose physiological or bodily promptings are hardly audible—vanity very soon becomes the only mainspring of action. It constitutes the only tribunal before which life’s alternatives are drawn for examination; and, according to whether vanity promises to be gratified or not by a certain course, that course is adopted or rejected.
When I say, therefore, that these vain, modest and negative people approximate nearest to the passionate, tragic type, it will readily be seen why this must be so. For to snub or to withhold your good opinion from the vain man or woman, is not only an offence in itself, it also deprives that man or woman of self-esteem for the time being. They depend on your good opinion of them for their good opinion of themselves. Not to give them your good opinion is, therefore, tantamount to destroying their joie de vivre for the time being; it amounts to depriving them of their mainspring, which is gratified vanity. But this is as good as killing them. Until they can find someone, or think of someone, who can cancel out your poor opinion of them, by a more exalted opinion, they are, therefore, desperate. They hate with a homicidal hatred (vain people never forgive anyone who has mortified their vanity), and this makes them tragic. Tragedy among vain negative people is always to be traced to wounded vanity, and never to passion. The constant mistake made by the modern world is to confound the passionate crime with the crime that arises from vanity.[100] But the passionate crime is of a different order of rank altogether. It is always a crime arising out of an affront against Life itself, whereas the crime that springs from vanity is always the result of the much more insignificant fact that somebody’s good opinion of himself has been assailed.[101]
In class (d) we also have a very large and growing section of the population, particularly among the middle classes. It consists of people, not unlike the former, but who know exactly what real passion does, and how it does it, and who proceed to ape it in every momentous incident of their lives. They are negative and therefore have no genuine promptings from passion; but they read and observe a good deal, and they emulate their passionate fellows with a pertinacity worthy of a better purpose. They will fall in love, marry, commit adultery, divorce, and even commit murder, provided that they can convince themselves that each successive step has been taken in the grand style. And, as they proceed through their various metamorphoses, they watch themselves with the double interest of participators and spectators of a great drama.
Of the whole negative class it may be said that they are radically unstable in marriage, because they are not actuated by any natural passion or impulse, and therefore do not become wedded to any environment where their instincts find perfect adaptation. On the other hand, however, they are frequently able, owing to this very lack of natural passion, to endure for a lifetime matrimonial unions which would be intolerable to the positive type for a month, and this accounts for the fact that, in England particularly, there are so many peaceful lifelong unions of couples who are childless and doomed to childlessness.