SELF-CONSCIO US NESS. 35 



niisenible I feel! If I were only safe at home 

 agiiiu I 



Oh, if I were drad now, 

 Or up in my bed, now, 

 To cover my head now, 

 And have a good cry ! 



What girl is there who has not at some time or 

 other experienced this horrible, sinking, inexpres- 

 sibly uncomfortable feeling? 



It is young men and young women, indeed, who 

 are the chief victims of the self-conscious mania. 

 In youth, and especially before marriage, lads and 

 girls are naturally anxious to please and produce 

 a good impression upon one another. In perfectly 

 healthy, unsophisticated persons, such a desire 

 merely takes the unimpeachable form of spright- 

 liness and a pleasing effort to make themselves 

 agreeable to other people. But in nervous and 

 self-regarding natures it takes the form of a con- 

 stant and ever-present prying into the reception 

 that others are giving them, — a pervading 

 consciousness of self, which never leaves them 

 even in the midst of the most distracting con- 

 versation or the most engrossing society. In- 

 stead of thinking about what is l)eing said and 

 what is being done, they are thinking all the 

 time of what is being thought of their own per- 

 sonality. 



And herein consists the real error and blunder 



