Alan S. Oser

"No man who hasn’t lost his vanity can be held to have altogether failed." Max Beerbohm.

Right you are, Max. As your satiric tale, “Enoch Soames” so cleverly demonstrated, Enoch should have understood his vanity, appreciated it, and stopped right there. Instead, he made a fatal bargain.

I feel sorry for this unfortunate fellow, who allowed his vanity to get him in its grasp. A sad fate is always a danger for the self-deceived, since self-deception ill prepares one for failure. The danger in vanity is that it can support a heavy load of self-deception, and self-deception, carelessly applied, can lead to disaster. Carefully applied, on the other hand, it can be a useful antidote for a sense of failure.

For me, a little vanity, even if it rests on self-deception, is a good thing. It boosts the morale. I do not recommend it for public display, however. Displays of vanity make us unpopular. Vanity should be kept private, which has the added advantage that the justification for it will go unchallenged. If vanity is fragile, challenge might shatter it.

I am no great shakes as a cook, but I am vain about my cooking. My vanity is fragile, however, so I wisely keep my pride to myself. If I admitted it to someone who had tasted my cooking, I would open myself to an unwelcome put-down. “You? A cook?” This taunt would spill gloom upon me. My vanity is not up to the mark in all situations.

In “Soames” it was made of stronger stuff. It got that way because he needed it desperately. Then he flaunted it unwisely. In the end it did him in.

The Beerbohm character was a self-styled poet of the late Victorian era in London, a man constantly sunk in gloom because the world had failed to recognize his talent, or even his presence. He had full confidence, in his vanity, that his talent would be recognized in future generations. He expressed this belief to Max Beerbohm at a restaurant one night in 1897, not realizing that the handsomely dressed mustachioed customer eavesdropping at the next table was none other than the Devil.

Overhearing Soames’ boast about ultimate recognition, the Devil introduced himself and offered him a deal: pledge me your soul, and you can visit the library of 100 years hence (June 3, 1997, to be precise) and look up your name in the card catalogue. Soames agreed, over Beerbohm’s protestations.

Eventually Soames meets Beerbohm again in the same restaurant. Back from his visit to the 1997 library, Soames is as disconsolate as ever. None of his books were listed in the card file. However, Soames did find a book on late nineteenth-century English literature that mentions the Beerbohm story, “Enoch Soames.” The author reports that Beerbohm calls Soames a “third-rait poit hoo beleevz imself a grate jeneus.” (The spelling in the book, Inglish Littracher 1890-1900, suggests the dire fate that Beerbohm anticipated for the “poor dear art of letters.”)

Soon the Devil reappears in the restaurant and Soames goes mildly to his fate.

Soames was foolish. He should have trusted his vanity and let it go at that. Sincere vanity should not be risked. It should be husbanded, nurtured, and not thoughtlessly put to a test that might deflate it. It should not be flaunted, but rather kept private, and safe. Insofar as possible, it should be converted to self-confidence, in which form it may actually do some good.

The truly self-confident may or may not be vain, but it hardly follows that the vain will always be self-confident. As a cook, my self-confidence is a product of my vanity, not my skill.

The form of vanity that I have found most odious is the kind that is built upon a genuine self-confidence justified by superior ability.

I cite the case of J.W.L., with whom I worked as a copy editor when we both were young. We were both vain as well, but my vanity was of the kind that later came into play when I took up cooking. His sprang from an awareness of his true ability.

“You’re wrong, Oser,” he would announce for all to hear during what had started as a quiet and amicable conversation on a grammatical point. “It doesn’t take a hyphen.” He had the whole style book memorized. It was unwise to argue with him on a grammatical point, or on any other point, since he was usually right. I cannot begrudge him his self-confidence, but his eagerness to embarrass whoever challenged him exposed a streak of vanity that made him an unpleasant colleague.

Subsequently J.W.L. became a quite famous journalist, purely on talent rather than personality. Many besides myself considered him a pain and tried to avoid him. At least he had talent. Imagine how foolish one looks when outspoken vanity masks incompetence.

I think of H.L., who considered himself a fine amateur violinist. He always insisted on playing the first violin part in a string quartet, and he would play too loudly and out of tune. He would then have the effrontery to criticize the playing of others. He was of course unpopular, and few people would consent to play with him after the first experience.

He was as blind to the snubs of other musicians as he was deaf to the deficiencies of his playing. Nevertheless, he continued to get others to play in his apartment. He served excellent meals at the end of the evening. That may have accounted for his ability to draw groups together. I myself did not succumb to that temptation. I remembered my mother’s wise couplet:

Caviar
Goes only so far.

It is for my own style of vanity that I’m making the case. When on public display, it takes the form of a cheery modesty–certainly not the gloom of a Soames. Vanity overtly revealed through boasting is simply offensive. Accordingly, I keep my vanity well suppressed, sometimes by making a joke of those efforts of which I’m in fact most proud.

There are times when I allow myself to reveal my vanity. I try to do it subtly, in the hope that it will be taken for something else. For example, I will mention that I have played string quartets with some rather distinguished professional musicians. In this way, those who have never heard me play will take me for a better player than I am. I do not trouble to mention that those sessions with distinguished players have been infrequent and the result of accidental circumstances.

At a party some years ago I casually mentioned that I had met Leopold Stokowski backstage after a concert in Brooklyn that he conducted at the age of 92. I was there with my 12-year-old son. Stokowski was not signing autographs, but he did smile at us when we congratulated him on the performance.

“You met Stokowski?” said a lovely young lady in a tone of awe when I recounted this incident. Others began to crowd around. I smiled modestly.

“He gave your son his autograph?” asked another lovely. He hadn’t, but I silently sustained the modest smile.

For the next few minutes I was the center of attention. I glowed with pride, as though meeting Stokowski was an important personal achievement, not easily accomplished by others. The pleasure did not last long. I suppose that on reflection the two young women were not so impressed. Still, it was an enjoyable experience while it lasted. I had put vanity to good use.

In contrast to Soames’ vanity, mine requires no self-deception to survive. I don’t expect my name to appear in any library card catalogue a hundred years from now. I feel no need to contract with the Devil to find out if I’m right. Vanity will pull me through in the here and now.