is, in itself, one of the greatest sources of intelligent endurance.






VI

_Self-Consciousness_





SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS may be truly defined as a person's inability to
get out of his own way. There are, however, some people who are so
entirely and absolutely self-conscious that everything they do, even
though it may appear spontaneous and ingenuous, is observed and
admired and approved of by themselves,--indeed they are supported
and sustained by their self-consciousness. They are so completely in
bondage to themselves that they have no glimpse of the possibility
of freedom, and therefore this bondage is pleasant to them.

With these people we have, at present, nothing to do; it is only
those who have begun to realize their bondage as such, or who suffer
from it, that can take any steps toward freedom. The self-satisfied
slaves must stay in prison until they see where they are--and it is
curious and sad to see them rejoicing in bondage and miscalling it
freedom. It makes one long to see them struck by an emergency,