to name it--and so we write great books, and paint grand pictures, and
sing sweet songs; and toil with willing hands in study, loom, and
laboratory.

We wish to become rich men, not in order to enjoy ease and
comfort--all that any one man can taste of those may be purchased
anywhere for 200 pounds per annum--but that our houses may be bigger
and more gaudily furnished than our neighbors'; that our horses and
servants may be more numerous; that we may dress our wives and
daughters in absurd but expensive clothes; and that we may give costly
dinners of which we ourselves individually do not eat a shilling's
worth. And to do this we aid the world's work with clear and busy
brain, spreading commerce among its peoples, carrying civilization to
its remotest corners.

Do not let us abuse vanity, therefore. Rather let us use it. Honor
itself is but the highest form of vanity. The instinct is not
confined solely to Beau Brummels and Dolly Vardens. There is the
vanity of the peacock and the vanity of the eagle. Snobs are vain.
But so, too, are heroes. Come, oh! my young brother bucks, let us be
vain together. Let us join hands and help each other to increase our
vanity. Let us be vain, not of our trousers and hair, but of brave
hearts and working hands, of truth, of purity, of nobility. Let us be
too vain to stoop to aught that is mean or base, too vain for petty
selfishness and little-minded envy, too vain to say an unkind word or
do an unkind act. Let us be vain of being single-hearted, upright
gentlemen in the midst of a world of knaves. Let us pride ourselves
upon thinking high thoughts, achieving great deeds, living good lives.