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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 6, Issue 8 (April 1, 1932.)
Deception and Reception
Deception and Reception.
Appearances are deceptive sometimes, but they are receptive at all times, and “keeping up appearances” is more profitable than keeping down expenses. Only hobos, philosophers, and suchlike social solecists can afford to risk the ignominy of being themselves; the hobo holds that serenity of soul or harmony in the harmonium is more fecund than a fallaciously filigreed facade, and the philosopher is a hobo at heart anyway. It must never be overlooked that the humble pie often conceals good meat beneath poor-looking paste. After all, man is after all he can get, and he requires so many aids to bolster up his self-esteem, that often he fails to conceal his artfulness behind his art.
Importance comes much more natural to the so-called lower animals. For you never saw a camel wearing spats, and a camel has been known to make a rich man feel so small that he could crawl through the eye of a needle. And what is more important than a hen who has just expressed her essential egglomania? But you never saw a hen dolled up like a decorated ham. If by the same token, men were obliged to compete in the flesh, as it were, the humble hen would win in pin feathers alone. But man, tonsorially titillated, suitably salved with the sassafras of society, and advertised with taste, is a thing of booty, winsome, handsome—and then some. If, however, a truth-ray were turned on him, there is reason to suspect that his definition of his declension would
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be such that in comparison George Washington would be classed as a manipulator of the verities. Yes, sirs, man would get the cherrywood on George.
“Inflation of face values.”