In England, in the time of Henry VIII., Sable was probably adopted by wealthy people as a distinctive mark of their social position; otherwise, why should it have become an object of legislation and have been prohibited by the Statute of Apparel (24 Hen. VIII.) to be worn by any under the degree of an earl?
It will, no doubt, be seen from this diverse and often singularly-extravagant appreciation of furs in Russia—and occasionally not so much for their beauty and elegance as for their rarity and great money value—that it is the lucky possessors who are admired and envied in these luxuries, because they are the means of proclaiming and parading so effectively their opulence; and the vain, exulting in this special homage to their exaggerated self-importance, cheerfully buy the gratification at their own appraisement, and thereby give to these furs an exorbitant value.
It might be contended that a single caprice of this nature is insufficient to prove the existence of a passion for the display of wealth, and that such instances must necessarily be rare because the furs are rare.
But it has significance enough to deduce from it its pervading character. The vain, it is true, can be vain only of what they possess; but to suppose these to have undivided possession of the folly, as well as exclusive enjoyment of the highly-prized furs, would be to take no account of the admiring multitude and the envious, without whom the vanity of others would clearly have no raison d’être—no visible existence; for the price of these special badges or symbols, these admirers, the public in fact, so materially sustain, is precisely the measure of the public estimation.
It seems therefore reasonable to infer that the sentiment is general.
Then when a caprice becomes à la mode—“the proper thing to do”—a powerful fresh stimulus is added to the folly, and the feverish desire “to be in the fashion” may develop the passion into a mania, whether its special objects be badges of wealth, bibelots, tulips, or bric-à-brac, and
“Thus does a false ambition rule us,
Thus pomp delude and folly fool us.”
But a desire to fall in with the fashion would alone be insufficient to explain the extraordinary price of blue fox feet fur; for a fashion to become a rage must first take the form of an epidemic—a condition rigorously excluded by the very restricted number of possible possessors of the coveted object. And so far as beauty is concerned, however beautiful this fur may be, its beauty would still far less account for the price. That the Russians consider it beautiful, is likely enough, for beauty to most people is purely conventional, and much more readily perceived through the ears than the eyes. Few, perhaps, would contend that the beauty of pearls and diamonds is at all commensurate with their price, and yet those who recognise the exaggeration, might not readily perceive that nearly all their value is derived from the esteem they command as badges or insignia of wealth and competence. If beauty has no objective existence—and there is no evidence that it has any other than as a sentiment or idea—it can have no money value at all in a beautiful object, simply because it is not there, but in the brain of the beholder; and this would, perhaps, explain why so many seem insensible to its influence, and again, why it appeared to Goethe to elude the grasp of definition. How often we vainly imagine we secure it in acquiring some charming tableau de genre or bit of old china, some rare gem or inimitable enamel, and, at the end of a few months’ familiarity with it, are disappointed at finding that it no longer rouses the enthusiasm we felt on first beholding its wondrous beauty! And yet, ever fondly clinging to the illusion that it is an intrinsic part of the object, we continue the pursuit like the chase of the beautiful blue-winged butterfly of Kashmeer, described in The Giaour, and not rarely find at last that—
“The lovely toy so fiercely sought,
Hath lost its charm by being caught.”