Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/114

 Conceit, indeed, is the quickest cure for it When it once begins to dawn upon you that you are a good deal cleverer than any one else in this world, bashfulness becomes shocked, and leaves you. When you can look round a roomful of people, and think that each one is a mere child in intellect compared with yourself, you feel no more shy of them than you would of a select company of magpies or orang-outangs.

Conceit is the finest armour that a man can wear. Upon its smooth, impenetrable surface the puny dagger-thrusts of spite and envy glance harmlessly aside. Without that breast-plate, the sword of talent cannot force its way through the battle of life, for blows have to be borne as well as dealt. I do not, of course, speak of the conceit that displays itself in an elevated nose and a falsetto voice. That is not real conceit, that is only playing at being conceited; like children play at being kings and queens, and go strutting about with feathers and long trains. Genuine conceit does not make a man objectionable. On the contrary, it tends to make him genial, kind-hearted, and simple. He has no need of affectation, he is far too well satisfied with his own character; and his pride is too deep-seated to appear at all on the outside. Careless alike of praise or blame, he can afford to be truthful. Too far, in fancy, above the rest of mankind to trouble about their petty distinctions, he is equally st home with duke or costermonger. And, valuing no