10
THE COURIER
v
NOTES OF VANITY FAIR.
The following is tho first of a series of articles written especially for The
Couukx, and which will appear weekly under the general beading as abovo.
Ed.
LAST week in The Cockier there were some verses on "Van
ity Fair" that are worthy of repetition:
Vanity Fair, Vanity Fair,
What can we purchase in Vanity Fair?
Hearts, perhaps broken, but passing for new;
Vows, false when spoken, but warranted true.
Colors they're faded, but fit still for wear;
Nothing is wasted in Vanity Fair.
Vanity Fair, Vanity Fair,
How goes the trading in Vanity Fair?
Worn, pale cheeks for red ones, and young hearts for old;
Fresh roses for dead ones; brass passing for gold.
Some lose all in the struggle, but none know of care,
No room for the failures in Vanity Fair.
Vanity Fair, Vanity Fair,
I pray you come join us in Vanity Fair.
Bring youth and bring gladness, your high aims, bright de
sires. Purchase old age and sadness, burnt out ashes of fires,
Naught else will be left you, but why should you care,
You have danced with the gayest in Vanity Fair.
Your mabogony bedstead isn't the only thing around you that is
veneered. Your bedstead has been moved about and mayhap
roughly used, and there are chinks in the veneer, but, generally
the surface is smooth and glossy, and you can imagine that the
beauty and richness to be observed on the outside extend all the
way through. But knock a bit of the veneer off, and you will see a
coarse, cheap wood such as no self-respecting person who moves in
Vanity Fair would like to exhibit as furniture.
There are few things that are not veneered. We tread on velvet
carpet that hides an old wooden floor, with cracks and knot holes,
and vermin running to and fro. We wear sealskins that are only
plush, and our great coats, that appear so magniflcont, from an ex
terior point of view, are filled with trash for stuffing and the lining
is full of holes. Our patent leather shoes cover stockings that may
not hide our toes. New gloves may incase a soiled hand; and our
spoons are plated and our jewelry "rolled."
The higher up we get in the social scale the more veneer there is.
Vanity Fair is itself only a gilded covering for the coarseness and
roughness and distress and misery that are elements in all life.
Society with a capital S is very much like the society that begins
with a small letter and about which the political economists and
socialists talk. The same kind of men and women
compose it; men and women with the same impulses
and aspirations and vices and virtues. Only there is a
little more pretence, a veneer of so-called culture that puts a brown
stone front on a cheap and rickety tenement In Society there is
the same joy and the same sorrow, the same happiness and pleasure
and the same trouble and disappointment, the same heart burnings,
and heart yearnings that are to be found among the people who
never get nearer than the courtyards and drawbridges in Vanity
Fair. But thsre is a different face on things. The electric light of
fashion casts a glow of its own on the people in Vanity Fair. Some
have culture; those who have it not feign it. Appearance is the
great desideratum. The best side is turned to the public gaze. The
rags and tho jagged ends and the broken corners are carefully
tucked away and pretence and hypocrisy are the rules of living.
They live for pleasure in this queer world of Vanity Fair. And in
seeking pleasure they work and scheme and barter away the best
gifts of life for the baubles that become as dead sea fruit in the hand
of satiety.
Hearts perhaps broken, but passing for new. Yes, that's one
thing they've learned in Society. The gay cavalier, the star of the
ball room, who smiles and bowo to passing belles, who with spirited
step leads the dance, may have misery in his heart, and be sick with
poignant memories of the past. But that is all below the surface.
There is nothing to indicate that anything but pleasure and the
attainment of heart's desire have been his portion.
Vows, false when spoken, but warranted true; colors, they're faded
but fit still for wear. Truth somehow gets strangely twisted in this
gay realm. Men and women stand ready to deceive each other
The willing ear may hear a thousand meaningless professions. Com
pliment degenerates into flattery, and flattery passes to flirtation and
flirtation to folly. But sincerity and candor and honor are on
dress parade, whatever may be stalking covertly in the by ways,
and the smiles and the music and the gayety never cease, though
plighted troth may be broken and vows be proved false. It is al
ways the same the veneer undergoes no change. Aye, the colors
may fade; but there's a remedy for that, and the faded and jaded are
the gayebt of the gay.
Purchase old age and sadness, burnt out ashes of fires. Naught
else will be left you, but why should you care? You have danced
with the gayest in Vanity Fair. Memories of the past are the solace
of old age. The sunken cheek of age may glow, and the lack-lustre
eye may be rekindled for a fleeting moment, by a chance recollection
of the triumphs and gayeties in Vanity Fair. Major Pendennia,
when gout had pinned him to the domestic fireside and advancing
years made the once sprightly body infirm, still lived in the circle
of fashion, and to his dying day he loved to dwell on his services to
My Lady This and the Countess That He never forgot that he had
danced with the gayest in Vanity Fair. Beau Brummell in rags was
Beau Brummell still. The burnt out ashes of fires left him with
nothing but the remembrance of the fact that he had once been the
prince of fashion, and that was enough. But the graduates are not
all Pendennises and Brummells. The ashes may often leave some
thing more than a recollection. They may leave a regret for the
follies the waste and the vanities of the life that is past.
But people do not often stop to moralize or regret things in Vanity
Fair until its too late till old age with its sadness has got fairly
settled down, and then nobody is particularly interested in them or
cares what they think. Old age has no right in Vanity Fair. And
Vanity Fair! How old age must see the folly of it! How thin the
veneer must seem! There are not many Brummells to say that the
game is worth the candle in Vanity Fair.
Exton.
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