eople with
a dramatic sense of your own importance. It will probably make you very
happy, and an absolutely insufferable person! I have little doubt that
the tiny prig was saying to herself, "I dare say that all these men are
wondering who is the clever-looking little girl who is walking in the
opposite direction to the match, and has probably something better to
do than look on at matches." It is a great question whether one ought to
wish people to nourish illusions about themselves, or whether one ought
to desire such illusions to be dispelled. They certainly add immensely
to people's happiness, but on the other hand, if life is an educative
progress, and if the aim of human beings is or ought to be the
attainment of moral perfection, then the sooner that these illusions are
dispelled the better. It is one of the many questions which depend upon
the great fact as to whether our identity is prolonged after death. If
identity is not prolonged, then one would wish people to maintain every
illusion which makes life happier; and there is certainly no illusion
which brings people such supreme and unfailing contentment as the sense
of their own significance in the world. This illusion rises superior to
all failures and disappointments. It makes the smallest and simplest act
seem momentous. The world for such persons is merely a theatre of gazers
in which they discharge their part appropriately and successfully. I
know several people who have the sense very strongly, who are conscious
from morning till night, in all that they do or say, of an admiring
audience; and who, even if their circle is wholly indifferent, find food
for delight in the consciousness of how skilfully and satisfactorily
they discharge their duties. I remember once hearing a worthy clergyman,
of no particular force, begin a speech at a missionary meeting by saying
that people had often asked him what was the secret of his smile; and
that he had always replied that he was unaware that his smile had any
special quality; but that if it indeed was so, and it would be idle
to pretend that a good many people had not noticed it, it was that he
imported a resolute cheerfulness into all that he did. The man, as I
have said, was not in any way distinguished, but there can be no doubt
that the thought of his heavenly smile was a very sustaining one,
and that the sense of responsibility that the possession of such a
characteristic gave him, undoubtedly made him endeavou