wonder the ancients did not erect the choicest of their temples to its
worship. Quant a moi, I shall henceforth only speak of it as the primum
mobile of whatever we venerate and admire, and shall think it the highest
compliment I can pay to a man, to tell him he is eminently vain."

"I incline to your opinion," cried Vincent, laughing. "The reason we
dislike vanity in others, is because it is perpetually hurting our own.
Of all passions (if for the moment I may call it such) it is the most
indiscreet; it is for ever blabbing out its own secrets. If it would but
keep its counsel, it would be as graciously received in society, as any
other well-dressed and well-bred intruder of quality. Its garrulity makes
it despised. But in truth it must be clear, that vanity in itself is
neither a vice nor a virtue, any more than this knife, in itself, is
dangerous or useful; the person who employs gives it its qualities; thus,
for instance, a great mind desires to shine, or is vain, in great
actions; a frivolous one, in frivolities: and so on through the varieties
of the human intellect. But I cannot agree with Mr Clarendon, that my
admiration of Algernon Sidney (Cato I never did admire) would be at all
lessened by the discovery, that his resistance to tyranny in a great
measure originated in vanity, or that the same vanity consoled him, when
he fell a victim to that resistance; for what does it prove but this,
that, among the various feelings of his soul, indignation at oppression,
(so common to all men)--enthusiasm for liberty, (so predominant in him)--
the love of benefiting others--the noble pride of being, in death,
consistent with himself; among all these feelings, among a crowd of
others equally honourable and pure--there was also one, and perhaps no
inconsiderable feeling of desire, that his life and death should be
hereafter appreciated justly--contemptu famoe, contemni virtutem--
contempt of fame, is the contempt of virtue? Never consider that vanity
an offence, which limits itself to wishing for the praise of good men for