ily mean, by reason,
any cause that seemed to justify or, on any consistent principle, to
account for the fact. As we have already remarked, it is the peculiarity
of vanity that it often flourishes most vigorously, and puts forth a
plentiful crop, where there does not seem to be even a layer of soil for
it.

Both men and women are occasionally most vain of their weakest points,
perhaps by a merciful provision of nature similar to that by which a sow
always takes most kindly to the weakest pig in the litter. Lord
Chesterfield, when paternally admonishing his son as to the proper
management of women, lays down as a general indisputable axiom that they
are all, as a matter of course, to be flattered to the top of their
bent; but he adds, as a special rule, that a very pretty or a very ugly
woman should be flattered, not about her personal charms, but about her
mental powers. It is only in the case of a moderately good-looking woman
that the former should be singled out for praise. A very pretty woman
takes her beauty as a matter of course, and would rather be flattered
about the possession of some advantage to which her claim is not so
clear, while a very ugly woman distrusts the sincerity of flattery about
her person.

It is not without the profoundest diffidence that we venture to dispute
the opinion of such an authority on such a subject as Lord Chesterfield,
but still we think that no woman is so hideous that she may not, if her
vanity happens to take this turn, be told with perfect safety that she
is a beauty. Her vanity is, indeed, not so likely to take this turn as
it would be if she were really pretty. She will probably plume herself
upon her abilities or accomplishments, and therefore Chesterfield's
excellent fatherly advice was, on the whole, tolerably safe. But still,
if any hereditary bias or unlucky accident--such, for instance, as that
of being brought up among people with whom brains are nothing, and
beauty everything--does give an ugly woman's vanity an impulse in the
direction of good looks, no excess of hideousness makes it unsafe to
extol her beauty. On the contrary, she is more likely to be imposed upon
than a moderately good-looking woman, from her greater eagerness to
clutch at every straw that may help to keep up the darling delusion. No
philosopher is, accordingly, surprised at finding that a woman is vain
where he can discover not the slightest rational foundation even for
female vanity.

But i