Excerpt from The Art of Living: And Other Addresses to Girls
To undertake to speak of the art of living suggests a difficulty at the very outset. Ought there, in truth, to be any art in right living? Must it not be spontaneous, the mere unconscious self-expression of a beautiful nature? It is to the child, blessed with perfect health, living in an atmosphere of freedom, that we turn when we wish to see the supreme example of the art of living. We love to watch him because he is so natural, so absolutely simple, because what he expresses is himself, himself shown to us without any thought, without any self-consciousness. This is what gives him his charm of character, his grace of action. How can there be an art of living when the beauty of living seems to lie in its very absence of art?
But reflection shows that childhood cannot last. Its grace, its spontaneous charm is too often followed by a period of awkwardness in mind and morals as well as in body, a condition generally spoken of as self-consciousness. So used, the epithet self-conscious is one of reproach. But in philosophical language self-consciousness is necessary to the development of character. The individual must become conscious of himself; he must realise self in his relations to things outside himself, to men, to God. He must take count of self, of his powers, of his limitations, so that he may be master of his own career, of his own inner life. This phase of human development is naturally attended by its own particular perils. It no doubt frequently leads to that unpleasant condition described in ordinary language as self-consciousness.
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