Nature has sometimes made a fool, but a coxcomb is always of a man’s own making.

Limits you were born with are nobody’s fault, but conceit is entirely constructed, piece by piece, by the person carrying it. Vanity takes work: the posturing, the small claims, the constant management of how you appear. It is one of the few faults with no excuse available. Nobody was made that way, and everyone who is has been building it for years.

Look for the piece of self-presentation you maintain most carefully and try a week without it. Notice whether anybody reacts to its absence, which will tell you who it was for.