ON VANITY AND VANITIES.

All is vanity and everybody's vain. Women are terribly vain. So are
men--more so, if possible. So are children, particularly children.
One of them at this very moment is hammering upon my legs. She wants
to know what I think of her new shoes. Candidly I don't think much of
them. They lack symmetry and curve and possess an indescribable
appearance of lumpiness (I believe, too, they've put them on the wrong
feet). But I don't say this. It is not criticism, but flattery that
she wants; and I gush over them with what I feel to myself to be
degrading effusiveness. Nothing else would satisfy this
self-opinionated cherub. I tried the conscientious-friend dodge with
her on one occasion, but it was not a success. She had requested my
judgment upon her general conduct and behavior, the exact case
submitted being, "Wot oo tink of me? Oo peased wi' me?" and I had
thought it a good opportunity to make a few salutary remarks upon her
late moral career, and said: "No, I am not pleased with you." I
recalled to her mind the events of that very morning, and I put it to
her how she, as a Christian child, could expect a wise and good uncle
to be satisfied with the carryings on of an infant who that very day
had roused the whole house at five AM.; had upset a water-jug and
tumbled downstairs after it at seven; had endeavored to put the cat in
the bath at eight; and sat on her own father's hat at nine
thirty-five.

What did she do? Was she grateful to me for my plain speaking? Did
she ponder upon my words and determine to profit by them and to lead
from that hour a better and nobler life?

No! she howled.