Evening star., 1932-04-15

An admirer Of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
once said to him, What kind OF vel
come did you think men would give one
| who condemns their morals by his ex-
, ample and strikes at their preJudices by
| his Writing?"
You see, the great Frenchman had
! complained about the attitude of some
people toward his works.
1t was nothing unusual then and it
Is nothing unusual now for people to
be afraid TO see themselves mlrrored in
! print.
The rosy colors in which they picture
themselves disappear in cold black and
! white. They are amazed at the differ
ence, and begin to feel hurt at once,
even though nothing inimical in the
least is said about them.
Their hero has vanished!
Can this plain, ordinary human being
| depicted here possibly be he?
They do not like to believe it about
themselves. Ignorance is bliss indeed.
What one doesn't know won't hurt one.
Familiarity breeds contempt.
The old geeZerS who delivered those
maxims to general mankind knew a
thing or two in their generations. They
put the honest, first-hand truth in the
old saws the everyday proverbs, the
4 X x
Bobbie Burns. a wise young gentle
man i'll his time. said what the YER
! nacular of today describes as a mouth
ful when he penned line which freely
translated, calls for some one to give
mankind the gift to see itself as it
really is, not as it pictures itself to
itself.
If this gracious donation, seldom
vouchsafed to any human being and
only to those who are intellectually
honest, could be given more freely.
most human beings would be amazed,
in all likelihood, to discover that this
plain self-portrat would not be very
detrimental in actually, but only in
their own minds.
1t would reveal what boobs they had
made of themselves, in the first place,
by setting themselves up as little gods
and goddeSSeS. when all the time they
were just human beings, with all the
faults and frailtieS of human beings.
They had put themselves on a pedes-
tai, and woe to him or her who should
kick 1t from under them To those
deft kickers, revealing them as they
were, should go all the blame for find
ing themselves other than their dreams.
No matter what should be written
about them. whether entirely harmless
or containing only one grain of satire
to six ounces Of truth, they profesSed
to SEE it III an entirely erroneous por-
trait.
The picture is truthful enough. but
few there are who wish to claim it.
DelusionS OF grandeur-these are not
alone the marks of mental suffering, as
manifested in certain psychic diseases.
but are the everyday portion OF mil
lions.
Each human being, according to an
tecedentS, environment, blood stream,
disposition, temperament, and what not
builds up two human beingS-the real
one which exists for the world, and the
unreal one which lives for and in itself.
Seldom do the two coincide.
Many go through life perpetually on
the defensive. The shrewdest of these
early come to put utter reliance in the
| maxim of the great Napoleon, The best
defense is a good offensive"
These are the people who are forever
diSagreeing with everything which any
: one else says They become so expert
! that by middle age or thereabouts they
can find points OF disagreement in any
| proposition at all.
| Thus they distract the attention from
| the possibility Of attack on themselves
and place it upon some eXtraneous issue
which is of no Importance at ALL 1t is
trick prosecuting attorneys learn.
Whatever you say will be used
| against you" is the unwritten, un-
| spoken warning issued by the lips and
eyes OF such persons. The lips have a