reeable to the body, so it does the mind good to feel
its superiority; and a man will seek company likely to give him this
feeling, as instinctively as he will approach the fireplace or walk
in the sun if he wants to get warm. But this means that he will be
disliked on account of his superiority; and if a man is to be liked,
he must really be inferior in point of intellect; and the same thing
holds good of a woman in point of beauty. To give proof of real and
unfeigned inferiority to some of the people you meet--that is a very
difficult business indeed!

Consider how kindly and heartily a girl who is passably pretty will
welcome one who is downright ugly. Physical advantages are not thought
so much of in the case of man, though I suppose you would rather a
little man sat next to you than one who was bigger than yourself. This
is why, amongst men, it is the dull and ignorant, and amongst women,
the ugly, who are always popular and in request.[1] It is likely to
be said of such people that they are extremely good-natured, because
every one wants to find a pretext for caring about them--a pretext
which will blind both himself and other people to the real reason why
he likes them. This is also why mental superiority of any sort always
tends to isolate its possessor; people run away from him out of
pure hatred, and say all manner of bad things about him by way of
justifying their action. Beauty, in the case of women, has a similar
effect: very pretty girls have no friends of their own sex, and they
even find it hard to get another girl to keep them company. A handsome
woman should always avoid applying for a position as companion,
because the moment she enters the room, her prospective mistress will
scowl at her beauty, as a piece of folly with which, both for her own
and for her daughter's sake, she can very well dispense. But if the
girl has advantages of rank, the case is very different; because rank,
unlike personal qualities which work by the force of mere contrast,
produces its effect by a process of reflection; much in the same
way as the particular hue of a person's complexion depends upon the
prevailing tone of his immediate surroundings.

[Footnote 1: If you desire to get on in the world, friends and
acquaintances are by far the best passport to fortune. The possession
of a great deal of ability makes a man proud, and therefore not apt to
flatter those who have very little, and from whom, on that account,
the pos