III. 



SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 



If we were asked to state in a single word what 

 purely personal cliaracteristic has probably caused 

 most misery to its innocent victims all the world 

 over in tliis sublunary life of ours, we are inclined 

 to think we should answer at once, not avarice, or 

 jealous}^ or temper, or love, but quite simply that 

 commonplace feeling, self-consciousness. To be 

 sure, love, we will admit — at the risk of being 

 considered horribly cynical — runs it a neck-aud- 

 neck ]'ace for that bad pre-eminence; for who 

 does not remember that half the tragedies and 

 terrors in this earthly life of ours have bad their 

 ultimate basis and groundwork of being in the 

 tender passion? We know at once that our girls 

 have reached tlie age of love-making when we see 

 their eyes pretty constantly red with crying in the 

 early morning. Nevertheless, even in spite of this 

 most serious competitor for the post of honor as a 

 general misery-monger, we are still disposed to 

 place self-consciousness in the very first and fore- 

 most rank as a common cause of human distress. 

 To every one person who suffers from the pangs 



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