Chapter III: Other Wallflowers

I hope that in what has gone before, I have been able by precept and example to help not a few young people. Possibly I have been just a little crude, and mayhap rough-shod, but that, let me assure, has been far from my intent.

Now remains to be given a brief summary, in the simplest of all possible language, of what I have gleaned from wallflowers in other phases of the social world.

THE WALLFLOWER AT BRIDGE

There are some people who have found that they just aren’t getting on at all at the bridge parties they attend. They are invited once and then for some unknown reason are not asked again.

Personally I care nothing whatsoever for the game and can really feel, sincerely feel, that the uninvited are the luckier. Of course, I can play bridge and pride myself with the feeling that I can hold my own among good average players.

If one learns the very simplest beginnings of the game one soon discovers that it is more than anything else a memory test. You should remember what cards are played and by whom. Also you should remember which are the higher cards and which are the higher suits. Outside of this there is nothing to bridge. So far in my rather varied career as a bridge player, I have found that three rules and no more do me very nicely.

1. Lead through weakness or lead the fourth from the highest card in your longest and strongest suit.

2. Third hand high.

3. Never trump your partner’s trick.

And that has carried me far. Of course, I learned how to keep score but that is a mere detail.

A few of the simpler social rules of bridge might come in handy.

1. Never argue. It is very uncouth.

2. Don’t talk too much.

3. If you happen to be dummy, take an interest in the game but don’t be too avid. It isn’t appreciated.

4. Never leave the bridge table under any circumstances in the middle of a game.

THE WALLFLOWER AT DINNER

This wallflower is usually a young man wedged in between two very lovely ladies or a young lady wedged in between two most interesting men. Being a wallflower in a situation of this kind is usually quite maddening to everybody present. And you are one in this particular circumstance because you cannot converse.

Conversation, the most artificial flower of life! Something that, like philosophy, is thought by many to be totally useless! Ah, how sad are those two exclamations above, particularly the last. The first is quite true but too painfully frank. The second is a cockeyed lie.

There are several Little Blue Books which would be of assistance to you should you desire to make a better conversationalist of yourself.[*]

[Footnote *: Little Blue Books, No. 367 (How to Improve Your Conversation); No. 821 (How to Improve Your Vocabulary), No. 734 (A Book of Useful Phrases), etc.]

The thing that most of all makes you a conversational dud is a tendency to voice too rabid opinions on subjects which are of little or no concern to the people about you. To be quietly opinionated, lack too virulent a dose of religiosity is quite all right. That is the sauce piquant to any conversation. Only narrowness and intolerance are to be avoided. Most intelligent people have discovered that there is no absolute of whatever nature and find all sorts of opinions and judgments quite naive and entertaining.

It is always wise in any sort of conversation to avoid pedantry, school teacherishness. You are assuming when you talk to people that they are of equal intelligence. If you are sure that they aren’t, reduce the length of your words and simplify your comparisons and analogies.

And don’t be a preacher unless you are as clever as George Bernard Shaw. Most people hate being preached at.

With these few simples you should find conversation quite easy. It, however, like everything else, must have glitter and sparkle and a great deal of subtlety. More must hit the ear than is actually heard.

But that is all there is to say to the young man wallflower except that his is not such a sorry state. After all, there are other things that could be worse. Even if you are deformed in some way it shouldn’t bother you in the slightest; women don’t care what you look like, so long as you are clean and not too utterly repulsive for words.

And it is not your personal appearance that can make you repulsive; it’s your personality and the habits of speech and attitude you have acquired.

THE ALCHEMY OF PRIDE AND VANITY

It is the common thing among people of little consequence to look upon the proud and vain with eyes of envy and disapproval. I have chosen to conclude my advice to wallflowers with this little essay because I feel that they need to know that these two qualities, of all other qualities, are the best to have or to acquire.

Alchemy was the medieval science of chemistry, the main object of which was to learn formulas or to discover formulas for changing base metals into gold. Another object of alchemy was to discover a universal cure for all ills and a means for prolonging life indefinitely. It was an art in its beginning. The fine art of vanity. It was fostered by the great of the earth because of their excessive prides. They felt, no doubt, that the earth would be a very sorry place without their minds and genius to guide it.

Witness the sad story of Faust, an alchemist, who sold his very soul for youth. Of course, in this unregenerate age of agnosticism nothing of the sort could happen. We are vain, of course, and we want youth but we have no credulous souls to barter for that youth. However, we have retained two very human chemicals which will do more to make us great than any of the medieval formulas. They are Pride and Vanity.

There grew in the world along with alchemy a philosophy of humbleness. It was a very unhealthy philosophy, this metaphysics of denial. And what has it ever done for the individual man? It has made great droves of the lowly satisfied with their unhappy lot. It has made it quite easy for those who have discovered the chemicals, pride and vanity, to conquer this earth.

This humbleness! What is there in it? These moral scruples that the humble have taken great pride in accruing to themselves? Ah, the idiocy of these things. Humble man has said that he being less than God is nothing. He has assumed that he is above the animal but being thus above, he has concluded, is nothing. He has screamed at the great earth that God has a place for him in heaven. Of course, say the humble, it is a lowly place at the feet of God but it is nevertheless a place in heaven. Think of that lovely propaganda. It is we, the proud and vain, who have made the humble. We have said in a variety of places that it is the humble who inherit the kingdom of heaven. We have told them that they will come to the feet of God but at the same time we have taken no stock in the belief. We have lived happy, contented, rational lives on this earth with our rubies and diamonds and sapphires and emeralds and our golden crowns and our silver thrones and our halls of marble and porphyr. We have cleansed our bodies with sweet scented waters, oiled them with unguents from Palestine, clothed them with silks from the Levant. And what else? We have grown plump and beautiful on the richness of this earth and we have enjoyed all these things because we were too indolent to worry about your Gods.

But that is not all. We have kept you, the humble, grovelling with our fables about humbleness. We have made you see that somewhere somehow you would acquire the ease and luxury of our existence and be happy. Often and often one of the humble sees clearly that all is not as it should be upon this earth. We will say that you, the humble one whom I am addressing, is that very person. Already you have had dreams of an earthly Utopia. Already you have understood that man is an animal and a rather superior animal at that, and that there is no particular reason why he should humble himself before anything. Already you have seen that the great in spite of their excessive pride, grovel before something even greater. In casting about, you soon discover that it is the approving smile of the humble to which they are bowing down.

“And why do they bow so low and why do the humble bow even lower to them?”

It is a very simple secret. The humble have made them and the humble are only children with dreams and fantasies. I know I have just said that the proud and vain are the great. I should have said that the proud and vain and clever are the great.

And that chemical is, of the three, the most important. To be full of pride without being clever is very dangerous. Why did I not mention that? Possibly because I am not very clever myself.

But already I have been guilty of a paradox. I have said that the great of earth have made the humble and that the humble have made the great. What kind of a statement is that? A paradox, pure and simple! Yet it is true. In the beginning it was the mental credulity and ignorance of the humble who raised the clever to the heights of the great and it was the clever, become great, who in their turn made the humble more humble than ever.

We have said that you, who were humble, have seen the error of all this and, being clever, have decided to do away with the false barriers that the great have thrown about you. You come to me, who have always known you and your family to be of the worthiest stock in the country, and you tell me that I am nothing but a gay colored balloon. I start rather violently to object to what you have just said. I bluster and object that I can do such and such a thing a little better than any other person on earth. I tell you that I am a very clever fellow. And then you say to me: “Look here, old fellow, you have misunderstood me entirely. I am not trying to puncture you; I am just telling you what you are and admiring you for it. I am not one of those who would run about shouting wild socialistic folderol. I hold no brief with the socialists, anyway. No, old dear, I merely came to tell you that I know what is up your sleeve and that I want you to tell me where to buy one for myself.”

With that I breathe a happy sigh and smile upon you and ask you what you can do. You name over several things and I clap upon one and say to you that I know of a man who needs somebody who can do just that. Then I add: “But remember this, my lad, whether you are more than passably clever at that sort of thing, don’t for a minute let anybody think that you feel yourself incapable of doing it. The thing to do is to get what you want and then learn how to do it at your leisure.”

And you go away and take my advice and we admire each other and say great things about each other and credit each other with virtues that we don’t pretend to have. Years later we may meet each other again and you will say to me: “I am doing very nicely with so and so. Oh, by the way, I have been wanting to tell you that I have taken on one of the haughtiest masks in the world, lately. I see clearly now that we cannot afford to give up our little secrets, they are too damn dangerous in the hands of the humble.” You have become vain and proud and clever.

This matter of cleverness that I mentioned above has to do with the very simplest of human factors. In the beginning, I said the humble made the clever great and the clever, become suddenly great, had in their turn made the humble humbler still. The clever have seen from the beginning they must perfect themselves in at least one of the admired qualities of the humble. They must, to become great, be the most clever sorcerers or the best dancers or the finest talkers or the best aviators or the most subtle actors of their race. They know that it is simple to make the humble adore them if they take one or more of the better qualities of the humble and accentuate them.

They may discover that the humble like to be fooled. They may find that they have certain mental quirks that make whatever they choose to say, thought wise. They may discover that they have learned more than anybody else about all the great literature or painting on this earth. They may find that they have the ability for giving the humble a wide and sane attitude toward life. But, having discovered this, do they give out all their secrets? They do not. They guard them with their very lives. If they are most wise they tell only half of what they have learned.

Some there are who, coming suddenly to this understanding, have wanted to spread it near and far in some form or other. They have soon discovered that the humble do not want to hear these things. The humble want to believe that these people are geniuses and that they themselves could never aspire to such heights. Nor do they care to. Being children they choose to believe their fairy tales and legends. They trust that some kind genie will come to them and say: “You have been chosen. You are the man of the hour. You can do thus and so better than your brother. I have come to heap the rewards of earth about your arm chair. You are chosen.”

Sometimes, as I have said, this very thing takes place but you must be clever enough to recognize it at its true value.

I have said all these things to the wallflowers because I wanted them to see that being like everybody else is not what one should call a very desirable quality. Most wallflowers have some difference. There is an occult quality in them which they deplore. They should not. They are for that very quality most fortunate. If they will soon recognize that they are just a little out of tune, that they are not common, that they are unusual, they will find that they, when they have discovered this, have ceased to be wallflowers.

POSTSCRIPT

I hope that I have said nothing which will offend. There is grave danger in that. There is the danger that I may drive some of my more sensitive readers to uncommon activities which will make them more ridiculous than ever. It is to be hoped that I have dealt with them carefully. I have tried to avoid being too didactic. I have tried to tell the wallflowers that even if they are not popular, there is no particular reason for deploring the situation.

And in that essay there is some mighty dangerous material. Probably I should not have said that the chemicals of pride and vanity and cleverness will carry one on to fame but, from quiet observation, that is what they seem to do.

I could go on for hours about the dangers of being too outwardly proud or vain. I think however, that a few paragraphs on this subject will be quite enough.

Pride is dangerous only when it insults the intelligence. Self-respect when it descends into self-conceit can make an ass of the most worthy person on earth. Pride is the quality which makes one feel that one is living and accomplishing something in this earth which, though it may not benefit humanity or, particularly, posterity, is certainly making the greatest number of contemporaries happy and contented. Pride it is that makes man go about this earth trying to understand just what is wrong with things as they are and trying to remedy them to the best of his meager abilities.

But vanity! Ah, sweet vanity! What great things she has done for this unlovely world. She has made women beautiful. She has made men stronger. She has made humor. She has fostered literature. She has made fame and vice and above all she has made love.

I could not urge one to adopt a more useful thing than vanity. It was an old and dying man who said: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” Only an old and dying man could say that vanity is useless. Even vanity has its usages. Even vanity is to be sought near and far.

And cleverness? Ah, lads and ladies, that is something else again. Cleverness so far as I see it is only a matter of practice. Children are not born to it; they acquire it by long specialization.

So in parting, dearly beloved wallflowers, let me add to this already garbled bit of advice a plea for pride and vanity. If you find that they are latent within you, for the love of all that is bad and unholy, culture and tend them with care. As the youth in school so ably misquoted: “Young man, if you have a spark of genius, water it.”