Many a poor fellow was hung by the neck in old times for
stealing a loaf to stop his hunger, and many a man of wit goes to the mad-
house nowadays because the void of his vanity is unfilled.
But vanity is called by yet another name when its disagreeable side is
hidden, and when its emptiness has come to crave for great things. It is
pride, then honorable pride, then ambition, and perhaps at the last it is
called heroic sacrifice. Vanity is an unsatisfied desire, hollow in
itself, but capable of holding both bad and good. It is not identical with
self-complacency, nor yet with conceit.
Probably John Harrington had originally possessed as much of this
mysterious quality as most men who are conscious of strength and talent.
It had never manifested itself in small things, and its very extent had
made many things seem small which were of the highest importance to other
men. He had worked as a boy at all manner of studies like other boys, but
the idea of laboring in distasteful matters for the sake of being first
among his companions seemed utterly absurd to him.
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