To Persuade Is More Trouble Than To

There Is Perhaps No Sort Of Self More Subject To Dangerous Egotism Than That Which Deludes Itself With The Notion That It Is Not A Self At All, But Something Else. It Is Well To Beware Of Persons Who Believe That The Cause, The Mission, The Philanthropy, The Hero, Or Whatever It May Be That They Strive For, Is Outside Of Themselves, So That They Feel A Certain Irresponsibility, And Are Likely To Do Things Which They Would Recognize As Wrong If Done In Behalf Of An Acknowledged Self.

It Is Surely A Matter Of Common Observation That A Man Who Knows No One Thing Intimately Has No Views Worth Hearing On Things In General.

In The Days Of Witchcraft It Used To Be Believed That If One Person Secretly Made A Waxen Image Of Another And Stuck Pins Into The Image, Its Counterpart Would Suffer Tortures, And That If The Image Was Melted The Person Would Die. This Superstition Is Almost Realized In The Relation Between The Private Self And Its Social Reflection. They Seem To Separate But Are Darkly United, And What Is Done To The One Is Done To The Other.

A Strange And Somewhat Impassive Physiognomy Is Often, Perhaps, An Advantage To An Orator, Or Leader Of Any Sort, Because It Helps To Fix The Eye And Fascinate The Mind.

It Happens From Time To Time In Every Complex And Active Society, That Certain Persons Feel The Complexity And Insistence As A Tangle, And Seek Freedom In Retirement, As Thoreau Sought At Walden Pond. They Do Not, However, In This Manner Escape From The Social Institutions Of Their Time, Nor Do They Really Mean To Do So; What They Gain, If They Are Successful, Is A Saner Relation To Them.