Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-11-17
PROFITABLE EGOTISM

4
There are few accepted maxims that
are net,ye< In need Of demoiition. One out
Of each one hundred thousand. let us say.
The TACT that the remaining 90 ,9o0 are rub
Dish and drivel only serves to make the
truthful one stand out monolithicaliy. as 1t
I we're ->--s
| The world will accept you at your own
valuation"-there 10 one. for example. that
| Is half true.
IL "you'' are q woman, the world Will
| quite frequently accept you at your own
I valuation. This IL not vet forth in any
spirit OF. churlish envy o: resentment, but
merely by way Of stating a fact.
| Take the case OF that girl in Chicago,
not long ago, for example. By some odd
chance she was q Washington girl just
| existing in Chicago. and therefore there Is
a local nub to the instance.
She had q job as typewriter. earning $40
| a week. The key-pounding palled upon
her. Strangely enough. she experienced q
hankerins for the good things Of life. She
| had no visible way Of getting them. 30
she divised a scheme.
| She offered herself "for SALE in Chi
| cago newspaper.
! She described her mental and physical
! parts and attractions in considerable de-
| tail in the terms Of that offer. She stated
| how high ard broad she was. her weight
| the color of her eyes. the hue and texture
| of her hair. She informed prospective pur-
| chasers, in effect. that She was a mighty
| pretty woman. She added, with unexampled
| modesty, that she was q brilliant woman.
| She set down the respects In which she
| was brilliant. She had a keen mentality
| and a poetic soul, she said: a nature that
| hungered for the higher and nobler. that
| 0nd fnr Tho ri
| painted for the good, the true and tho
| beautiful and a few other things frequent
| ly mentioned at afternoon meetings OF
| club ladies who diffuse the fragrance OF
| violet sachet and engage In choral CONVEX
| satiop. --e---
Possessing all of these virtues. attain
ments and attractions she set forth the
| simple fact that she was "for SALE"
| How the world took her at her own VAL
uation was feature uppermost In the
news for a considerable space.
| All sorts Of people begged the privilege
to hand her money and things. A pretty
personable sort Of an Iowa man offered her
! 100000 II she would marry him. Lovahle
| old childless couples beseeched her to come
| and live with them through their declining
days and consider herself heiresS to their
estates upon their death. Scores OF weii-
| TODD city men implored her to accept
| them and all they had at the altar. Rich
| old laoies invited her to accompany them
on protracted and luxurious tours OF the
| world, at large salaries and w.t. all of her
| expenses paid. She was given her pick OF
I dozens of highly-paid secretarial jobs. Gifts
were sent to her from all directions. some
| of them expensive gifts. She was In
| undated with flowers. Theatrical managers
| strove with each other to get her to sign
| with them. Museum managers offered her
sums up in the thousands Just to. sit On a
| platform and exhibit herself.
| The fact that, at the finish. she accepted
/ job with New York newspaper, while
it looks an extraordinarily foolish choice to
forks actually following the newspaper
/ calling, doesn't in the least mitigate the
fact that she had thousands Of chances to
! better herself.
! She was the most recent instance of
| woman deliberately -appraising herself and
being accepted at her own valuation She
| got by with 1t in the simplest imaginable
| manner. All that 1T cost her was few
| minutes tinkering with a typewriter. long
| enough to- enabL her to tell the world just
| now excellent she considered herself.
Marie Bashkirtseff, another girl who
| was accepted by the world at her own VAL
uation, had to work a bit harder for hers.
| Marie had to write and publish diary to
become the fGurante OF her time.
"A nav, generation has sprung I'D since
| the day Of Marie Bashkirtsefr. so that 1t
Is more than likely that a good many read
| ers Of this will not remember who she
i~-was"e' She was a Russian girl. well-born
and well-to-do. who went to Paris at the
! age of seventeen, chaperoned by one of her
! elderly relatives. to study art. She was.
| IN truth very lovely BlTl. NOW, dlf lovely
! girls know that they are lovely. But the
| eminence Of Marie Bashkirtsen consisted
In the intensity of her knowledge OF her
| own beauty.
She had weak lungs and was doomed to
die Of consumption before reaching the age
I of twenty-one She dimly apprehended that
| her end was to be untimely She had little
| time to apprehend anything except that she
| was, very beautiful. Day after day, week
| after week, month after month. during that
! residence of hers in Paris she set down in
| her diary that wonderfully frank series of
t appreciation Of her own beauty and talent.
| She was the first and last egotist of all
/ time: She described herself as a creature
of supernormal fairness. sprite of lowell
ness inhabit1ng a. higher ether, genius of
all the ages. The candor with which she
butes was magnificently naive. She accepted
| her beauty and talent in wholly lmper-
sonar spirit. it seemed. She stood Off at a
| distance 1t appeared, and surveyed herself
and chanted prose paeans to her own sump-
tuosity Of appearance and mind.
MY eyes are SO very beautiful" she
wrote. time and time again. They have
strange opaline tintings. They mirror my
| lovely violet. again they have the soft
! gray glisten Of an autumn lake. How beau
tiful, beautiful they are! never weary Of
studying them in my glass"
What unimaginable pretty hands and
nails have! she writes again. Such dim
pied knuckles. such soft, velvety skin!
adore my handS!'
In that diary she tells how utterly out of
harmony she feels with nearly all human
beings. on account OF her own manifest su-
periority to all Of them in qualities Of mind
and soul.
It was eerie. yet fascinating, reading,
that diary Of Marie Bashkirtseff's, and peo-
pie who are perhaps just now beginning to
become a bit stout will easily recall what a
tremendous sensation the book made, along
in the later eighties, when it was published.
That diary Of the Russian girls captivated
no less mind than that Of William Ewart
Gladstone. the grand old man Of England,
and he wrote a review of 1t. That in itself
was enough to give the diary a huge vogue.
1t was peddled on the streets of the big
cities from push carts, selling literally by
| the hundreds Of thousands. Everybody
read 1t and talked about it. There was q
pathetic sort of interest attached to it from
the fact that the girl had died before the
publication Of her strange diary.
The world took Marie at her own ap-
| praisal. She had been pretty and talented,
but when she told the world that she was
phenomenally beautiful and a genius be-
yond compare, the world rose to her and
gave 1t to her. 1t was an extraordinary rev.
elation of how egotism wins the day-for
women.
Our own Mary McLane was another ex-