Yes, vanity is a weakness indeed. But pride – where there is a real superiority of mind, pride will be always under good regulation.

Mr. Darcy. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

A series of interconnected and yet subtle clues…

Too many people spend money they earned..to buy things they don’t want..to impress people that they don’t like.

Will Rogers – (Nov 04, 1879 – Aug 15, 1935 (age 55)

… there is a rising into the wild and coming back to the city whence they came from.

In the 18th century, England gained a reputation as the ‘melancholy capital’ of Europe and had disturbingly high suicide rates, which for physicians was creating a sense of a nation in crisis. 

(https://www.historyrevealed.com/eras/georgians/the-18th-century-origins-of-psychiatry-a-grand-conspiracy/)

Whether heart or mind be branded by the same irons…

The way to Heaven is ascending; we must be content to travel uphill, though it be hard and tiresome, and contrary to the natural bias of our flesh.

Jonathan Edwards – (October 5, 1703 – March 22, 1758)

Albeit there is now no colour

paths have unwound

in the alley of beckoning hope

comes to winters gale

fading silence.