It would be rash then to assume that wherever people come together to enjoy one another's company there is affection. Braggarts must have listeners, skinflints will have their cronies. The self-conceited by no means resign themselves to solitude. The utterly selfish mental invalid may be an utter cormorant for sympathy. In such cases the individual foregathers with others not from love but to gain a sounding-board for his "I," to exalt his own self by bringing under or exploiting other selves. Many egoists of the purest water are on the constant lookout for sympathizers, admirers, or satellites. In a pinch such vampires can find satisfaction even in one another, for each endures the plaint or brag of the others for the sake of having attention when his turn comes to blow the trumpet.

Egoistic society apes the manners and amenities of good-will association, but its hollowness shows in a variety of ways. Under velvet endearments women stretch their claws and scratch like cats. Each lady of an exploitive social circle keeps books, as it were, and will not set out cake when she is hostess if the others have been serving only wafers; or if she offers cake it is to triumph over the rest. Stingy beldames calculate it costs less to attract company by spiced gossip than by spiced refreshments. Roistering egoists watch that no one skips his turn to stand treat. Cronies who are not good fellows show their yellowness when one of them falls into trouble. Then he is given to understand that no one cares to see his long face or listen to his tale of woe. For such fair-weather friendship the refrain is, "If you're out of health or money you needn't come around."

MANNERS

It is the rôle of good manners to sweeten social intercourse by deleting or refining the struggle among the "I's." The well-bred refrain from such irritants as conspicuousness in dress, loudness of speech, boasting, self-display, monopoly of the conversation, controversy, rudeness, the humiliating of others. The best manners call for the constant subordination of the claims of one's self to the claims of the selves of others. When all in a circle act up to this standard, association becomes in the highest degree enjoyable

provided that real congeniality exists. In the best circles of our South the harmonization of the demands of different egos has become a fine art. The way in which a well-bred Southerner will let the conversation take any direction you seem to wish, always playing up to your lead and suppressing his own preference, reveals the secret of the oft-noted "charm" of southern society. In eighteenthcentury France the higher social class developed manners of a suavity before unknown and the spread of these over the world has put many peoples in debt to the French. Throughout Spanish America one finds diffused an older, unselfish, but less sympathetic, manner that grew up among the hidalgos of Spain.

The percolation down among the people of the manners wrought out in a leisure class is a very important step in socialization. Politeness is, to be sure, a poor substitute for good-will and respect for the rights of others, but where these traits do not yet exist it is most valuable. Its function is not to sweeten the relation of kinsfolk, friends, or lodge-brothers but to lessen the chafing between strangers, colleagues, or rivals. Wherever, as in South America, good manners have become the heritage of all classes, even among muleteers and deckhands, the contacts of men give rise to few quarrels and brawls. Good manners cannot, of course, do away with such hostility as arises from conflict of interests; but they go far to prevent troubles which have their origin in the naïve assertion of the "I" in human intercourse.

THE MIRRORED SELF

The disturbing state of mind we term "self-consciousness" is rather our consciousness of others; of others, however, as noticing and appraising one's self. For many children the first experiences of figuring in the minds of another are extremely upsetting. Some unable to bear an unfamiliar eye cover the face or hide themselves. Under the stranger's gaze the bashful child blushes, makes random movements, twists its body, pulls at its clothing, puts its finger in its mouth, or bites its nails. Muscular co-ordination goes by the board, so that it drops or spills things, stumbles over trifling objects, and finds its hands and feet become alien. It may giggle, laugh nervously, stammer, or even lose voice and word memory. In stage

fright the symptoms match closely those of extreme fear. Even the experienced speaker finds discomfort in the "cold" or "unsympathetic" stare.

I

However, if closer acquaintance reveals a kindly attitude in others, children cease to shrink from their attention and even begin to court it. "In the youngest children," says Hall and Smith, "showing off' seems to be the simple, openly expressed desire for recognition and sympathy, the step in the extension of the consciousness of self which naturally succeeds the baby's development of self through the investigation of the limits of its own body."

The desire to play a star part in other people's minds develops much earlier than is commonly supposed. "The child," says Professor Cooley, "appropriates the visible actions of his parent or nurse, over which he finds he has some control, in quite the same way as he appropriates one of his own members or a plaything, and he will try to do things with this new possession, just as he does with his hand or his rattle. A girl six months old will attempt in the most evident and deliberate manner to attract attention to herself, to set going by her actions some of those movements of other persons that she has appropriated."

The human looking-glass in which the infant sees its little I reflected furnishes it a powerful stimulus to do things. Children brought up in foundling asylums, where they receive good physical care but not loving, personal attention, learn to walk and to speak much later than those whose baby efforts call forth the encouraging "ohs" and "ahs" of an admiring family, whose sympathy baby soon learns to claim as his right.

"Strong joy and grief depend upon the treatment this rudimentary social self receives. In the case of M., I noticed as early as the fourth month a 'hurt' way of crying which seemed to indicate a sense of personal slight. . . . . The slightest tone of reproof would produce it. On the other hand, if people took notice and laughed and encouraged, she was hilarious. At about fifteen months old, she had become 'a perfect little actress,' seeming to live largely in imaginations of her effect upon other people. She constantly and obviously laid traps for attention and looked abashed or wept at 'Pedagogical Seminary, X, 160.

any signs of disapproval or indifference.

If she hit upon any

little trick that made people laugh, she would be sure to repeat it. She had quite a repertory of these small performances, which she would display to a sympathetic audience or even try upon strangers."

Some never develop much beyond this childish stage. I recall a clever young college instructor who in every conversation was obviously occupied with the impression he was making. After he had touched off an epigram you could see him busily priming the next one, in the meantime paying not the slightest attention to your remarks unless they dripped compliment. The callow monologist would make the round of his acquaintances like a landlord collecting rents and then retire to his den to gloat over the admiration he believed he had excited.

No one is totally indifferent to his mirrored self, but people differ greatly in sensitiveness. The wise man schools himself to be content with the approval of the discerning. The strong man cares only for the handclap of his peers and will not be looking every minute for fear his social image has changed. Those born in the purple give themselves little concern over what the commonalty think of them. We perceive Haman was an upstart when we read: “But when Haman saw Mordecai in the King's gate, that he stood not up nor moved for him, he was full of indignation against Mordecai." After telling over his honors he adds: "Yet all this availeth nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the King's gate."2

A man may think he turns on his own axis, but "if failure or disgrace arrives, if he suddenly finds that the faces of men show coldness or contempt instead of the kindliness and deference that he is used to, he will perceive from the shock, the fear, the sense of being outcast and helpless, that he was living in the minds of others without knowing it, just as we daily walk the solid ground without thinking how it bears us up."3

One we call "independent" or "self-sufficient" is not outside society nor dispensing altogether with social approval. He may

'Cooley, Human Nature and the Social Order, pp. 164–67.

be a massive deep-draft character that from past approval has gained enough headway not to be stalled in the slack water of indifference, nor caught in an eddy of blame. He may be a discriminating person who smiles at the catcalls of the multitude provided only the wise appreciate him. He may be serene when all men revile him because in his imagination he sees himself triumphantly justified before some high tribunal of the worthies of the past or of the élite of the generations to come. As Ibsen puts into the mouth of one of his characters, "The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone," seeing that for corroboration he relies least on numbers or contemporaries. This is why faith in God is so bracing to the disinterested champion of an unpopular cause. Imagined divine approval enables him to hold his course amid general opposition and obloquy. In the homes of the Christian missionaries in Inner China one can read from the many cheering religious texts hung about the walls how, aliens in a strange land, they feel the need of counteracting the moral isolation in which they live.

ence.

In a light-draft mind preoccupation with one's reflected self shows itself as vanity. The vain man, unlike the constructive and stable sort, cannot hold steadily to an idea of his worth. He cannot fix past social approval as a durable part of his thought of himself, cannot get the habit of taking his merits for granted. Hence his self-feeling is subject to great ups and downs. Let people show admiration or envy of him and he treads on air; but in a trice some slight or rebuff has cast him into the depths. His nature lacks a flywheel to carry him past the "dead points" in his experiHe cannot keep up his self-confidence with the huzzas of last year or even last month; he needs his praise fresh. Such constant dependence is a weakness and will be exploited if it is worth while to do so. The vain man who happens to be rich or powerful or influential is an easy mark for sycophants and toadies, since he swallows gratefully the flattery that buoys his soul in hours of selfdistrust. One who skilfully feeds the vain man his needed ration of "taffy" makes himself indispensable. Vanity, too, may be played upon to make one a tool of others. The vain are easy to get the better of and are always burning their fingers pulling other people's chestnuts out of the fire.