Or was he a "piker"; a little fellow, the victim of his own fears and vanities?
He has his vanities as well as Miss Thorpe, and the chief difference is, that, having a stronger head, they have not yet injured himself.
I hope all the praises she received and all the spangled trappings she wore did not spoil her; but I am afraid they did, for she was always over much given to the vanities of this world!
What pretensions has a man to our generous assistance or good offices, who has dissipated his wealth in profuse expenses, idle vanities, chimerical projects, dissolute pleasures or extravagant gaming?
It was the last morning of the Carnival, and every one knew there was a second Bonfire of Vanities being prepared in front of the Old Palace; but at this hour it was evident that the centre of popular interest lay elsewhere.
There would be a scene of solemn farewell, in which he would bid her be happy in her own way, in a tone of semi-paternal benevolence, after which he would give her his blessing, and bid farewell to the pomps and vanities of society.
Thus loom on my imagination those happier days of our city, when as yet New Amsterdam was a mere pastoral town, shrouded in groves of sycamores and willows, and surrounded by trackless forests and wide-spreading waters, that seemed to shut out all the cares and vanities of a wicked world.