Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1893-09-15
VANITY OF GREAT MEN.
CONCEIT EXHIBITED I'M ALL
WALKS OF LIFE.
Authors, Painters, sculptors and Musi-
clans Have Frequently Shown Evidence
of Well Developed self Confidence
Notable Exceptions.

Notable Exceptions.
The candor with which Salvini in
his autobiography handles the sub
ject of his own talent has provoked
comment. but after all there is some
truth in what Schopenhauer says:
with people with only moderate
ability, modesty is mere honesty, but
with those who possess great talent
it is hypocrisy" A man possessing
genius can hardly fail to be conscious
of it, and the New Orleans Times
Democrat thinks it only natural that
he should take pleasure in such of
his works as best display his power.
Keats, who ''hated mawkish popu-
larity," was merely within his right
when he said: Il think / shall be
among the English poets after my
death. When Michael Angelo, hav-
ing heard his ''Pieta" ascribed to a.
Milanese sculptor by group of
sightseers. straightway shut himself
up in his church that night and CHS
eled his name upon fllet of the
drapery, he was not moved by
wounded vanity, but by the proper
self-respect of the artist who knows
thst his works are worthy to be &C
knowledged.
LISTS proud motto. "Genie oblige,"
commits those who adopt it to many
trials and efforts AS Francisco
Millet said, speaking out of his own
experience, 'In art you must give
c1~ -. I,
was to paint for eternity" had
moments of dark dependency in
that time when neglect disheartened
and ridicule assaulted him. IF |
were not firm in my own ideas" he
wrote once, "if | had not some
friends-if | were alone, in fact
should ask myself if l were not the
dupe of my imagination, if / were
not q dreamer. Mendelssohn also
acknowledged that there were days
when call things looked at him
askance." and he felt that he would
''prefer being a carpenter or a
joiner" to following his own high
vocation.
Sir Walter Scott's biographers tell
us that he never introduced his own
books as topic of conversation, but
if they were referred to by others
he joined simply and naturally in
the talk; not showing himself fatu-
DUSTY eager for adulation, or mock
modestly deprecating the praise
which was his due. Lamb was not
less adverse to an affected attitude
on the part of literateurs. A sworn
enemy of "cock- of-the-walk-ism,"
nothing pleased him more than to
trip up pompous gravity and send it
sprawling. Thackeray, when it was
necessary, spoke candidly of his
writings and on several occasions
specified certain passages which he
considered his best work; but he did
not call himself "the inimitable" or
| suggest that his domestic virtues
would form good material for his
! biography. But there are and have
been many men of genius marked by
an overweening conceit. 1t is re-
corded that Degas once said TO
Whistler, apropos of the latter's
mania for posing: "My dear friend,
you conduct yourself just as if you
had no talent at all.
The musicians feminine love of
appreciation has been playfully ex.
planned by saying that "Music is
worAln," but authors, as a body.
have not shown themselves free from
this failing Hazlitt classed Byron
as sublime coxcomb, a." and Leigh
Hunt as "a delightful one" Vanisy
! ,f lo 1aff Ii, II. l.,
OF child proud of its new frock or
its useless little treasures, is rather
winning than otherwise, through its
naivete, but there is another sort
which demands tribute of all passers,
and is liable to provoke a spirit of
opposition. The self-esteem OF Haz-
lit himself was excessively irritable
and OF unstable balance. He would
even fancy that the walters in the
coffee house were pointing him out
to the other guests as 1.-The gentle
man who was so abused last month
in Blackwood's magazine" Garrick
was another gifted one whose talents
gave him no feeling of surety. He
was unfortunately sensitive TO COM
ment-living, as it were, Sin
whispering gallery, always listening
and always anxious about himself"
The vanity of Gustave Dore, that
"gamin de genie" as Gautier called
him, took the form of jealousy of his
contemporaries. He flew into
transport of rage upon hearing that
Meissonier had received 100000
francs for a painting; and he always
fancied that unfavorable criticism Of
his pictures must have been inspired
by personal enmity.
A Pearl Boat.
Not very long ago a London news
/ ,nnnnr annnnncnd that a inwolnr OF