THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF SELF. 311 



as well by diminisliing the denominator as by increasing the 

 numerator.* To give up pretensions is as blessed a relief a^ 

 to get them gratilied ; and Avhere disappointment is incessant 

 and the struggle unending, this is what men will always do. 

 The history of evangelical theology, with its conviction of 

 sin, its self-despair, and its abandonment of salvation by 

 works, is the deepest of possible examples, but we meet 

 others in every walk of life. There is the strangest light- 

 ness about the heart when one's nothingness in a particular 

 line is once accepted in good faith. All is not bitterness in 

 the lot of the lover sent away by the final inexorable ' No.' 

 Many Bostonians, crede experto (and inhabitants of other 

 cities, too, I fear), would be hapj)ier women and men to-day, 

 if they could once for all abandon the notion of keeping up 

 a Musical Self, and without shame let j3eople hear them 

 call a symphou}' a nuisance. How pleasant is the day when 

 we give up striving to be young, — or slender ! Thank God ! 

 we say, those illusions are gone. Everything added to the 

 Self is a burden as well as a pride. A certain man who 

 lost every penny during our civil war went and actually 

 rolled in the dust, saying he had not felt so free and happy 

 since he was born. 



Once more, then, our self-feeling is in our power. As 

 Carlyle sa^s : " Make thy claim of wages a zero, tlien hast 

 thou the world under thy feet. Well did the wisest of our 

 time write, it is only with renunciation that life, properly 

 speaking, can be said to begin." 



Neither threats nor pleadings can move a man unless 

 they touch some one of his potential or actual selves. Only 

 thus can we, as a rule, get a ' purchase ' on another's will. 

 The first care oi diplomatists and monarchs and all who wish 

 to rule or influence is, accordingly, to find out their victim's 

 strongest principle of self-regard, so as to make that the 



* Cf. Carlyie : Sartor Resartus, 'The Everlasting Yea.' " I tell thee, 

 blockhead, it all comes of thy vuuity ; of what thou fanciest those same 

 deserts of thine to be. Fancy that thou deservest to be hanged (as is most 

 likely), thou wilt feel it happiness to be only shot : fancy that thou deserv- 

 est to be hanged in a hair halter, it will be a luxury to die in hemp. . . . 

 What act of legislature ivas there that tJiou shouldst be happy? A little 

 while ago thou hadst no right to be at all," etc., etc. 



