The satisfaction
must be cheap, however, at that price.
Even our wise men and sages do not seem to have escaped the
contagion. One sees professors and clergymen (who ought to set a
better example) trailing half a dozen letters after their names,
initials which to the initiated doubtless mean something, but which
are also intended to fill the souls of the ignorant with envy. I
can recall but one case of a foreign decoration being refused by a
compatriot. He was a genius and we all know that geniuses are
crazy. This gentleman had done something particularly gratifying
to an Eastern potentate, who in return offered him one of his
second-best orders. It was at once refused. When urged on him a
second time our countryman lost his temper and answered, "If you
want to give it to somebody, present it to my valet. He is most
anxious to be decorated." And it was done!
It does not require a deeply meditative mind to discover the
motives of ambitious struggles. The first and strongest illusion
of the human mind is to believe that we are different from our
fellows, and our natural impulse is to try and impress this belief
upon others.
Pride of birth is but one of the manifestations of the universal
weakness - invariably taking stronger and stronger hold of the
people, who from the modest dimension of their income, or other
untoward circumstances, can find no outward and visible form with
which to dazzle the world.
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