CHAPTER XIII
SELF-INDULGENCE AND FAILURE
The correct definition of self-indulgence is failure—because self-indulgence is comprised of an aggregation of vices, large and small, and failure is the logical sequence thereof. Even the habit of eating may be cultivated into a vice. Indeed, there are those who gorge without restraint, which in itself is unchaste and immoral. We've often seen them as, with napkin under foot or tucked under the collar, they eat their way through mountains of food and wash it down as they reach for more.
No use to say how and what we feel when we attend such performances. It is all right to say "Look the Other Way," but it can't be done. It is human nature to gaze upon horror—sometimes in sympathy, but more often in amazement. Sometimes a well staged scene of gormandizing viewed from a seat in the second or third row center of a softly lighted, thick carpeted food emporium saves us the price of our own meal. We no longer hunger on our own account. Our appetite is appeased by proxy, so to speak, and we calmly fix our eyes on the "big show" and sigh for a baseball bat.
No wonder a noted bachelor of medicine declares "People are what they eat!" The exclamation point is our own. We quite agree with our medical brother for we have seen people eat until we thought we would never be hungry again.
But there is more to self-indulgence than the food specialist has to answer for, so we will be on our way. For instance, there is the spendthrift; surely he is entitled to a short stanza. We all know him. He goes on the theory that he has all the spending money in the world, and that long after he is dead those on whom he spent it will remember his generosity. Vain hope!—Whatever memory of him remains will be of a different kind. Those who have been bored by his gratuitous attentions will take up the threads of their existence where they left off when he drove them away from their usual haunts. No longer will they have to dodge down alleys and run up strange stairways in an effort to avoid his overtures.
When alive and in full operation he knew more about what was best for us than we could possibly think of knowing. Left to his own devices he would have us smoke his particular brands, drink his labels, eat his selections, wear his kind of a cravat, overcoat, cap, hat, shoes, and underwear. And to make his proposition sound business like he would willingly pay the bills! In this little amusement we are supposed to play the part of receiver and praise his generosity.
Whatever may be our verdict on this chap we must keep in mind that his inordinate desire to waste his substance was no less than a vice if for no other reason than its example upon others; it is just as bad to be a "receiver" as it is to be a spendthrift. If we cannot build up a reputation for generosity without becoming ostentatious we might better take lessons in refinement from someone "to the manor born."