Evening star., 1932-08-05

| Dignity is something which touches
! all men upon occasion.
| No one Of us can say when the time
will come when he will have to stand on
his dignity.
Perhaps it may be a case of having
nothing left to stand on.
In such position, happy Is the man
who actually possesses, and Is able to
make others feel, the dignity which
every human being Graves
He is able to save his face" as the
Orientals say.
They have no monopoly on that feel
ing, however.
1t is we'll known to human beings
the world around
Often it is better to save ones face"
thar to make an actual gain.
In all this the question Of human
dignity is uppermost
We would confine the discussion to
the every day, where dignity plays its
part quite as much as among the great
and the mighty and during events ex-
citing and tremendous.
Dignity preserved at the price of a
sort of inhumanness is scarcely worth
| it in the every day life.
Consider a common case, such as
may and does arise in the case OF
thousands Of city human beings.
| Here is an operator Of public
{ vehicle.
! A passenger greets him with an hon.
! est smile, as he hands him his fare,
and gets a smile and spoken word in
reply.
That's democracy. good American
! fellowship. and all that sort of thing.
The passenger is not deferred from
being human by any considerations
whatsoever of differences in the social
scale, money making capacity, rank,
and so on.
As far as he is concerned, the public
vehicle man is good public vehicle
man. and that Is all he wants to know.
Evidently the other figures that his
passenger is good passenger, and that
| is all he wants to know.
Their mutual good Will goes on for
several weeks, until one fine morning
when the passenger offers his fare and
| his usual greeting the utilities man
, accepts the one, but refuses to reply in
kind to the other.
Now, If the passenger has an exalted
sense OF his own dignity, one of these
| "touchy' dignties which can brook nc
slight, he will feel somewhat hurt about
! this and wonder what he has done
| W OIl6Iu LIE lcllDW.
II he carries his dignity with a smile
however, secure in the belief that ii
can take care of itself, he will forget
about the matter.
The next morning he will speak as
usual, as if there had been no breaking
Of the unwritten contract between the
| two.
| If the fellow persists in his sullen
| streak. the passenger then and there
! proceeds to wipe him of his slate OF
| speaking acquaintances, and thereafter
treats him to dose OF his own actions
In doing this much, however, he is
careful to sponge off the slate of his
mind the inner reSentments which
naturally spring from such proceeding
1t is right here that so many human
beings fall down in their human con-
facts, and make a sort of fool out OF
their dignity.
True dignity does not require accept
ance on the part of others
"A slave, and manned in body; q
beggar, and dear to the immortals."
Such was the epitaph Of Epictetus
! ancient philosopher. who understood
the workings Of the human mind better
than many a modern psychologist
1t pictured perfectly the man of dig
nifty, despite conditions which tended,
with the majority of men, to hide this
precious quality.
Dignity is, after all, one Of mankind S
most dearly beloved possessions.
There are four main definitions of
1t; first, as true worth, or excellence;