ish to create a romantic
atmosphere round one's self and to increase one's personal importance.
Because men hold out hands less greedy toward drama and romance they are
less afflicted, but they do not entirely escape, and we have all
observed the new importance of the man whose brother has been
photographed in a newspaper or, better still, killed in a railway
accident. If he has been burned in a theater, the grief of his male
relatives is subtly tinged with excited delight. Romance, the wage of
lies, is woman's compensation for a dull life.

5

Vanity is as old as the mammoth. Romantic lying, obviously connected
with vanity, is justly alleged to be developed in woman. No doubt
woman's chief desire has been to appear beautiful, and it is quite open
to question whether the leaves that clothed our earliest ancestress were
gathered in a spirit of modesty rather than in response to a desire for
adornment.

But it should not be too readily assumed that vanity is purely a
feminine characteristic. It is a human characteristic, and the favor of
any male savage can be bought at the price of a necklace of beads or of
an admiral's cocked hat. The modern man is modish too, as much as he
dares. At Newport as at Brighton the dandy is supreme. It would be
inaccurate, however, to limit vanity to clothes. Vanity is more subtle,
and I would ask the reader which of the three principal motives that
animate man--love, ambition, and gold lust--is the strongest. The desire
to shine in the eyes of one's fellows has produced much in art and
political service; it has produced much that is foolish and ignoble. It
has led to political competition, to a wild race for ill-remunerated
offices, governorships, memberships of Parliament. Representatives of
the people often wish to serve the people; they also like to be marked
out as the people's men. There are no limits to masculine desire for
honors; seldom in England does a man refuse a peerage; Frenchmen are
martyrs to their love of ribbons, and not a year passes without a
scandal because an official has been bribed to obtain the Legion
d'Honneur for somebody, or, funnier still, because an adventurer has
blacked his face, set up in a small flat, impersonated a negro
potentate, and distributed for value received grand crosses of fantastic
kingdoms. Even democratic Americans have been known to seek titled
husbands for their daughters, and a few have become Papal barons or
counts.

Male vanity di