THE USES OF SELF - CONSCIOUSNESS.
A"FURTHER Memoir of Marie Bashkirtseff " has just been published. It is as self-conscious, but by no means as interesting, as the former one. It was said of G-oethe that, like the three-eyed girl in the German tale, "he had always an extra organ besides the eyes he wept and slept with to take note of his own sleep and his own tears." Marie Bashkirtseff had also a "third eye" which she called the " moi- spectateur." A few years ago she was able, through the medium of this "observant self," to show to the public some striking pictures drawn from the inner consciousness of a morbid girl of genius. In the new book we again catch sight of this other self, and a pale, unwholesome ghost it is, dogging the foot- steps of a dying woman. These additional memoirs can add nothing to the reputation of their author, yet there is something about them which makes a more vivid impression. upon the reader than their literary merit will adequately account for. "Is it unfortunate that I am not more simple?" the writer demands; and the reader finds himself wondering whether to reply " Yes " or" No," and asking himself how far it is right for ordinary men to entertain this familiar spirit of self-observation which is wandering about in the present day and seeking rest in every thoughtful mind. Should he be exorcised, or allowed to remain and made useful? Self-con- sciousness is no doubt productive of some harm, but on the whole we believe it is productive of more good. In many natures it is very closely allied to the element of the ideal. Self-respect and self-consciousness go often hand-in-hand. Almost every man has a picture in his own mind of the sort of man he would like to be, and that picture is usually a more or less flattering likeness of the man that he actually is. The humblest among us does not sincerely desire to be some one else,—only to be a glorified edition of himself. The outlines of this fancy portrait are generally drawn in youth,— while there is leisure to indulge the imagination, and before the hurry of life and the hot pursuit of success have made us careless what manner of men we are. A consciousness of the presence of this idealised self who has acted so heroically upon so many hypothetical occasions may often save a man's actual self from an unworthy course of conduct. "Can such a man as I," we can imagine some one saying to himself, "who have sacrificed so much to my principles in imagination, make up my mind to belie my mental experience in reality?" Thus the imaginary self modifies the real self. Men forego a tangible gain for the sake of an intangible idea, and once more, as so often happens in this puzzling world, "the things that are not bring to naught the things that are."
One of the commonest, and possibly also one of the smallest, evils produced by the habit of self, consciousness is shyness. One of the greatest is perhaps the theory—apparently held by a few cultivated people—that the old-fashioned vice of selfishness can by a change of name be turned into a new- fashioned virtue which they call self-development. Shyness, like cold in the head, is a disease which ravages Northern Europe, but is little known elsewhere. The social climate of England seems to be pre-eminently favourable to the development of this complaint. One reason, we would suggest, lies in the fact of our great social liberty. In all classes a man may do very much as he likes if he will only do it in the right way. Our manners are not prescribed for us. We do not use the formal politeness of foreigners, which can be easily learned and practised. We have no parts to learn, no cues to take up. We are obliged to plunge on to the stage and improvise. It is this absence of rule, this constant possibility of choice, which creates the painful sense of self-conscious perplexity from which shy people suffer. Self-consciousness, particularly the self-consciousness of shy people, is often con- founded with conceit, but the one has not necessarily anything to do with the other. Self-consciousness, we admit, often leads a man to take an exaggerated view of his own import- ance, and of the importance of his own actions, but it will as often lead him to self-distrust as to arrogance. Besides, it is very doubtful whether this tendency to "take oneself seriously" is altogether unwholesome. It has, no doubt, its ludicrous side, but the value of a man's character depends largely upon the importance which he sets upon his actions. All religious and moral revivals have brought an increased idea of the importance of every human soul. We are all born with an instinctive appreciation of what Balzac called "the sublimity of the gift of self." Every child is not only the central figure in the world of imagination which he creates around him, but also in the actual world so far as he can conceive it. "What are you doing P " said the present writer a short time ago to a little schoolboy who appeared to be busily engaged with a 'great deal of ink and paper. "I am going to write a book," was the reply. "I shall lay the scene in South Africa, and the title will be Me and the War." "Me and the World" would make a good title for the story of most men's lives. No doubt we some- times think too much of our own parts in the drama of life, but that does not matter so long as we play them well. The exaggeration will at least prevent our stumbling through them without study. In Shakespeare's Henry V. the Dauphin is made to say, "Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin as self- neglect " ; and there is a type of man who is un-self-conscious because, unhampered by any fixed ideal, any plan of action, or ay certain opinions, he has really no personality to be conscious of. Just as some people fall unconsciously into the tone of voice of those they are with, so these men fall into the tone of mind of their company, and are never themselves but when they are alone. Often they are popular because they are superficially sympathetic, and because we all like some- times to see ourselves reflected; besides, they are good friends, except at a pinch, and even then, if they give little help, they are always ready with a great deal of pity. They are never altogether praiseworthy or altogether to blame for anything that they do; somebody else always has the lion's share of the responsibility; but, like Rudyard Kipling's Tomlinson, "in the race that is run by one and one" they take a very poor place indeed.
"Know thyself," said the Delphic oracle; and self-knowledge can hardly exist without some measure of self-consciousness, though we must admit that the conscious study of self by no means always leads to self-knowledge. Introspective people frequently startle their friends by a ridiculous misapprehen- sion of their own characters. They examine themselves so closely that they lose all sense of proportion and perspective, and when by diligent dissection they have at last made them- selves familiar with each several part, they have lost all power to recognise the whole person, and the chief result of their labours is a sort of mental and moral myopia, which tends to unfit them for the society of their fellow-creatures. "There are occasions," said Pope, "when a man's self is the worst fellow to talk to in the world ; " and who does not know men and women—especially young men and women—who have become insufferably dull companions by reason of having so studiously cultivated their own dull company? Amiel main- tains in his celebrated Journal that by self-analysis alone he had obtained insight into human nature; and George Eliot is said to have replied to some one who asked her from whom she drew Bulstrode : "I drew a possible sell." We cannot help believing that the converse of Amid's theory is the truth, and that study of the human nature in the world out- side of us is the only way to obtain a useful knowledge of ourselves,—such a knowledge as will enable us to gauge our own capacities, discount our own prejudices, and get some control over the "madman within" whom we all have cause to suspect. It was George Eliot's power of sympathy which made her say what she did about Bulstrode. It was the study of other people which enabled her to depict her "possible selves." The dictum of the psychologists is true, —" It is through the 'us' that we learn of the 'me.'"
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