The star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1908-1909, 1908-03-05
OUR COMPLEX SELVES.
Some Very Different Ways OF
Looking at a Man.

Inc OlIef 0dAg SdlusliiS AA45N
principal, Il took the pleasure or the
pains, whichever you have. a mind to
call it, Of pointing out to lone of my
teachers that she was sarcastic. she
gave adittle start, pulled for breath and
then exclaimed: oh. then, l have been
| sarcastic all my life without knowing
it,
"This reply reminded me very much
of Moliere's NJ. Jourdain, who, on learn
ing that all which was not prose was
verse and all that which was verse was
not prose, shouted in surprise: Then
1 have peer speaking in prose all my
life without knowing it,
81 mention the incident only because
it goes to show what pleasant little IL
~lusions all of US cherish in regard to
ourselves and how we may go on and
on living with ourselves for a whole
lifetime and know as little about what
we truly are and how we impress others
as if our real and our imagined selves
were two next-doQr neighbors not on
speaking terms.
1T was Oliver Wendell Holmes, ]
think, who divided a certain John into
something like four distinct person.
alities-the real John, the John who
was what John thought himself to be,
and John as he appeared to his friends.
/ forgot the other John, but one can
see easily how the process may be eX-
tended.
There are in all Of us latent qualities
that only rise to the surface II be-
come known in times of emergency and
stress, and then we are dumfounucd
to find ourselves acting in quite an
other than our usual manner and intro
duced to a certain strange person, who
has been bone of our bone and flesh
of our flesh all our lives long. but
whose existence we never suspected.
MAN, know myself advised one of
the seven wise men of Greece. But
what with the complexities of modern
life and modern personalities. VIC might
do better TO change the apothegm and
say, Man, know thyselves.'
Certainly the job is not easy for
mono of us does know himself. Like
everything else in this world, we are in
a constant condition of change, remold-
ing and rebuilding; nothing lasts for
ever, not even a state of mind or an
outlook, and about the time we begin
to think we know ourselves we have re-
volyed into quite other beings whom to
understand we arc Obliged TO study
anew. And so it goes and so it comes
that we think ourselves incon-
sistent and vrhen we
arc only in a state of change and insta-
bility. That this is SO NAV be good. for
in the realm of mere personality as in
of the physical and moral world.
s%tagnation means death and change
means growth and life.
ION the other hand-netice INV in
consistency,-I sometimes get to think
that we change but little after all
and that we come into the world th,1s
and so and remain so and tb,s ,pti,
The end of ou,. davs Al least loading
back on nv own bovbood tbro,,gb tho
Iong vista nj my own az wears moro or
Iess. II annears 10 mo that IN a-sgap+ials
have changed hut Iittle ;f a. oil rho
the foundation tbe sta 90
+exrar vo, nil, ranooins
,ra ctical1v the same. but tha scenes
ebiftine as do +bo ooIorad glassos
n q aieidoscona
"Hence The jncons,s+on,, .ha corn
and bewi1derment of II al
We NAV nour;sh 1,hat mn
ions about o,,rsoix,as me- viii u,hioh
no los the gor,a in+arestino if ,o+hinr
nore to tho snectator Net ooncerrad
"a minor h,,t Mons tbo lose coneidii
.ra ble noet,T he1iera ha oaoo 1,oa ~