Superficiality

“ There come times in all lives when superficiality has to be shorn away, when we must look upon things as they really are and cast aside all pretence and the nice fabric which cloaks our everyday actions and affairs. ”

“ To regard this superficiality as more than a transient symptom, and thereby to lose sight of the genuine intensity of nature which has animated it, would indicate the shallow observer. Our youth has been audacious, self-confident, and lacking in thoroughness because of its zeal to assert and distinguish itself, and thus has justly, in one sense, incurred the accusation of being superficial, but it has incurred this partially because of its disposition to maintain the privileges of individual judgments. ”

“ The person who cannot do this, must agree with me or be satisfied with superficiality, the mark of muddled minds, which may indeed be rendered dissatisfied and landed in negation, but which can reach no positive view of their own. ”

“ This will be held by many to be a plea in favor of superficiality, and if getting a general view of another line of work is superficiality, why it is a superficiality of which many specialists might well be guilty. ”

“ And this is another reason that makes it difficult to judge of character. Extremes meet; and qualities display themselves by the most contradictory appearances. Any inclination, in consequence of being generally suppressed, vents itself the more violently when an opportunity presents itself: the greatest grossness sometimes accompanies the greatest refinement, as a natural relief, one to the other; and we find the most reserved and indifferent tempers at the beginning of an entertainment, or an acquaintance, turn out the most communicative and cordial at the end of it. ”

“ I might as well have decreed that I should not look the same and be the same—that all my habits of thought and traits of character should not be my own. Imagine that a tree in your garden had will and intelligence. ”

“ As I have grown older, and have seen the inferiority of other men and the superiority of my own mind and judgment, naturally my early opinion has been strengthened and deepened. But on that day I realised how my own sight of myself had been obscured by a too close view. My domestic exasperations, the necessary disagreeableness and pettiness of so many of the details of my great projects, the triviality of my routine of business and its harassments—all these had combined to make me belittle my own stature and bulk. ”

“ Or, again, when the particular passion is characterized, the general temper and disposition, which we call the manners, is clearly discernible. There is a liberal and graceful air, which discovers a fine temperature of the affections, in one; a close and sullen aspect, declaring a narrow contracted selfishness in another. In short, there is scarcely any mark or feature of the human mind, any peculiarity of disposition or character, which the artist does not set off and make appear at once, to the view, by some certain turn or conformation of the outward figure. ”

“ Never, it may safely be said, were the elements of a truly generous character unfolded and brought to perfection by such a system as this—a system which, so far as it encouraged self-deception, and the substitution of mere pretence for what is real, just, and true, is exactly so much worse than absolute greediness. ”

“ Whoever has seen deeply into the world has doubtless divined what wisdom there is in the fact that men are superficial. It is their preservative instinct which teaches them to be flighty, lightsome, and false. ”

“ If you are, gentle reader, you are showing yourself unworthy of your own soulfulness, unworthy of the elegant society into which I have introduced you. I have been giving simply the plain facts—a mere skeleton upon which you, versed in society columns and society novels, and skilled in the art of hiding ugly truths under pretty lies, may readily drape the flesh and the garments of sentimentality and snobbishness. ”

“ And when this dissection is after a fashion accomplished, it is the less useful, in that the same strand is discovered to change its color and texture from one section to another. Deception is here a vice and there a virtue. Folly is here amusing and there horrifying. Egoism is here absorbent and there encroaching. There are sentimental epicures and unsentimental epicures and ascetic sentimentalists. There are vulgar snobs and refined snobs and a vulgarity that is not snobbish. ”

“ We move among wraiths of "purposeful" or "wistful" men, "straight," "fine" women or women misunderstood, or dulled beyond reprieve. Penetrating, imaginative passages there are, to be sure, an arresting use of a word here and there, a sense of the beauty of old weathered things, of the pitiless craft and hypocrisy of man in his most predatory moments. "How cunning they were, the men who had been successful in life. ”

“ I rather wish I did know what mine really does depend upon, though perhaps if there was anything dependable about it, it might make one lose interest in one's self. It's just the variety that is so fascinating. When people say, 'Ah, so-and-so is so charming—always the same, you know,' I at once think how very dull that so-and-so must be. ”

“ I cannot tell how it comes to pass, that society oppresses me; that the forms of politeness are disagreeable to me—that what people talk about does not interest me,—that all that they show to me is either quite indifferent, or else produces quite an opposite impression to what they expect. When I am shown a drawing or painting of any beautiful spot, immediately a feeling of disquiet arises within me which is utterly inexpressible. ”

“ The rude familiarity of the lower orders, and indeed the unpolished state of society in general, would neither surprise nor disgust if they seemed to flow from that simplicity of character, that honest ignorance of the gloss of refinement which may be looked for in a new and inexperienced people. ”

“ Notwithstanding the complacent grimaces of his face, the self-sufficiency of his looks, his systematically powdered and dressed hair, his showy dress, his counted and short bows, and his presumptuous conversation, teeming with ignorance, vulgarity, and obscenity, he cannot escape even the most inattentive observer. ”

“ I am what they call 'difficult' I know,—I do not like 'society' or its amusements, which to me seem very vulgar and senseless,—I do not like its conversation, which I find excessively banal and often coarse—I cannot set my soul on tennis or golf or bridge—so I'm quite an 'outsider.' But I'm not sorry!—I should not care to be INside the human menagerie. ”

“ Into the house of conduct erected by the superficial self it sends an obsession, which doesn't, owing to a twist that the superficial self, which isn't candid, gives it, seem to bear any relation to the suppressed wish. ”

“ If we admit the existence of the temperate character, it ought to find its place here. Can we admit it, or ought it not rather to be looked on as a purely ideal category? Though we may admit that persons are actually to be found in whom feeling, thought, and action are present in strictly equal proportions, ought we not to consider this as the absolute suppression of character, i.e., of any marks of individuality? ”

“ I will, therefore, say, that the inward beauty, whether fully represented or not by the outward form, implies, in the first place, the absence of all those qualities which tend to lower and vulgarise life. ”

“ From your own observation, reflect what a disagreeable impression an awkward address, a slovenly figure, an ungraceful manner of speaking, whether stuttering, muttering, monotony, or drawling, an unattentive behavior, etc., make upon you, at first sight, in a stranger, and how they prejudice you against him, though for aught you know, he may have great intrinsic sense and merit. And reflect, on the other hand, how much the opposites of all these things prepossess you, at first sight, in favor of those who enjoy them. ”

“ Where worldliness gives the tone to character, it corrupts the source of good manners, and the outward polish is purchased by the inward corruption of the heart. The crucial experiment of character is found in the transition from modest competency to conspicuous wealth and fashion. ”

“ What must my feelings be on finding rough and rude manners, glaring folly, and the basest selfishness apparent in almost every public transaction! They are not always successful, it is true; but is it not dreadful to find them in such a place? ”

“ Thus the good and bad qualities of our actions and manners constitute virtue and vice, and determine our personal character, than which nothing operates more strongly on these passions. In like manner, it is the beauty or deformity of our person, houses, equipage, or furniture, by which we are rendered either vain or humble. The same qualities, when transfered to subjects, which bear us no relation, influence not in the smallest degree either of these affections. ”

“ Or, if your tenderness for the feelings—say the failings, if you please,—the prejudices, the weaknesses of others,—has no weight, let, at least, your own ideas of personal propriety, your just pride, your conscious worth, point out to you the path in society which you are so eminently formed to tread. ”

“ Perhaps, after all, the finest and most hopeful thing about an apparently sorry world is that over its surface are sparsely strewn men and women of matured developed charm or intelligence or perception, who exert unconsciously the influence of their personality on those in immediate touch with them. ”

“ She weighed this, a forefinger against a cheek.
“The big ways are those which indicate character, aren’t they? While the little ones only make for habits. Men differ as to their habits, but in character they’re all cut on the same pattern—two or three patterns at most.” ”

“ The fact is, that they are so superficial that a person who has really done something—I don't mean who has played at it, but who has really under the spur of necessity got to the bottom of some one subject—can hardly endure their conversation. ”

“ The truth is that, superior as they are to many of the ‘changes and chances of this mortal world,’ they, too, have their weak points, and vanities of their own, about which they are touchy as other people. ”

“ These are largely matters of temperament or of mood. The attitude of many of us changes from day to day, from book to book; but at heart we all have a preference, a prejudice in favor of certain methods of writing, while others awake our antagonism. ”

“ But his people of fashion and quality are just upon a par with the low, the selfish, the unideal characters in the contrasted view of human life, and are often the very same characters, only changing places. ”

“ This is true of what we call a bizarre mixture of incongruent elements in mode of attire or in manners; for it is experience and the habits of social life which dispose our minds to regard them as foreign one to the other. Much of our mirthful gratification at exhibitions of the incongruous arises through a perception of the intrusion of something foreign into a situation. ”

“ None, he would say with great earnestness, appeared so ugly to his instinctive perception as some of those persons whom the world accounted handsome, but upon whom pride, or haughtiness or conceit had set its stamp, or who bore in their countenances what no countenance can conceal, the habitual expression of any reigning vice, whether it were sensuality and selfishness, or envy, hatred, malice and uncharitableness. ”

“ It is not who we are, how we are dressed, or how we look, whether we are homely or handsome, educated or uneducated, so much as what we are that creates that subtle mysterious atmosphere of personality which either draws people to us or drives them from us. ”

“ These attributes are not applicable to a human personality; being as a rule judgments of character intuitively and not critically approved, which are projected upon our fellow-beings, inevitably doing serious injury to human relations. ”

“ One feels oddly superficial in his company, and, resentful of the imposition, blunders into self-assertive vulgarities which one knows to be misrepresentations of oneself. Do still waters always run deep? ”

“ But the deepest stain of the vulgarity depends on this being done, not selfishly only, but stupidly, without understanding the impression which is really produced, nor the relations of importance between oneself and others, so as to suppose that their attention is fixed upon us, when we are in reality ciphers in their eyes—all which comes of insensibility. ”

“ It is all a question of varying degree of possession of the other-personality. In myself, the degree of possession is enormous. My other-personality is almost equal in power with my own personality. And in this matter I am, as I said, a freak—a freak of heredity. ”

“ In the sense of their relation toward other men—you, for example. You've proved that. You're not natural! You don't live, or act, or eat, or play like natural people. All you know about is one tiny niche. ”

“ This is why the feelings which suffer from this contrast are so deeply pathetic. It is a reality, and a stern reality, that can hardly be imitated or duplicated by any other two men in this generation. ”

“ In this era of the newest of sciences, psychoanalysis, which is attracting the study and investigation of millions, much attention is being given to the explanation of the281 failure of so many persons to find an outlet for hidden capacities by the well-worn "inferiority complex." The flower of personality, we are told, is born to blush unseen because of an individual's belief that he or she is in some way inferior. ”

“ And an imperfect appearance of this character we were compelled, in our last chapter, to recognize in the individual habits of the soul. Further in the beauty which presents us with a realized type, we find another form of the union of fact with principle. ”

“ The only real trouble with you Earth people is that you have a tremendous inferiority complex, collectively and individually—as you’ve just illustrated. Get over that and you’ll eliminate most of your trouble. ”