The Monthly Magazine.] [October, 1830–June, 1831.
I
Servility is a sort of bastard envy. We heap our whole stock of involuntary adulation on a single prominent figure, to have an excuse for withdrawing our notice from all other claims (perhaps juster and more galling ones), and in the hope of sharing a part of the applause as train-bearers.
II
Admiration is catching by a certain sympathy. The vain admire the vain; the morose are pleased with the morose; nay, the selfish and cunning are charmed with the tricks and meanness of which they are witnesses, and may be in turn the dupes.
III
Vanity is no proof of conceit. A vain man often accepts of praise as a cheap substitute for his own good opinion. He may think more highly of another, though he would be wounded to the quick if his own circle thought so. He knows the worthlessness and hollowness of the flattery to which he is accustomed, but his ear is tickled with the sound; and the effeminate in this way can no more live without the incense of applause, than the effeminate in another can live without perfumes or any other customary indulgence of the senses. Such people would rather have the applause of fools than the approbation of the wise. It is a low and shallow ambition.
IV
It was said of some one who had contrived to make himself popular abroad by getting into hot water, but who proved very troublesome and ungrateful when he came home—‘We thought him a very persecuted man in India’—the proper answer to which is, that there are some people who are good for nothing else but to be persecuted. They want some check to keep them in order.