e same castles of despair that we find the
strongest examples of the opposite physiognomy, in good people who
think they have committed "the unpardonable sin" and are lost
forever, who crouch and cringe and slink from notice, and are unable
to speak aloud or look us in the eye.... We ourselves know how the
barometer of our self-esteem and confidence rises and falls from
one day to another through causes that seem to be visceral and
organic rather than rational, and which certainly answer to no
corresponding variations in the esteem in which we are held by our
friends.[1]

[Footnote 1: James: _loc. cit._, vol. I, p. 307.]

Self-satisfaction depends, as has been said, on the kind of
self we are aiming at, and that in turn depends on the kind
of self we are. A professional bank-robber may take a craftsman's
pride in the skill with which he has rifled a safe and
made off with the booty, just as a surgeon may take pride in
a delicate operation, or a dramatist in a play. The ideal and
the measure of satisfaction will again be determined by the
group among whom we move. The bank-robber will not
boast of his exploits to a missionary conference; the surgeon
will prefer to explain the details of his achievement to medical
men who can critically appreciate its technique. The ideal
self we set ourselves may far outreach our achievements,
considerable and generally applauded though these be. A
man may know in his heart how futile are his triumphs, how
far from the goals he cherished as young ideals. Many a
brilliant comedian longs to play Hamlet; the gifted and scholarly
musician knows how easy it is to win an audience with
sentimental and specious music. The humility of genius has
again and again been noted. "The more one knows the less
one knows one knows."

Many men attain self-satisfaction through negation,
through a serene surrender of the unattainable. As the
Epicureans counseled, they increase their happiness by lessening
their desires. The content which middle-aged people exhibit
is not so frequently to be traced to the dazzling character of
their achievement as to their resignation to their station.
Young people are moody and unhappy not infrequently
because they cannot make a reconciliation between what they
would be and what they are. Others again attain satisfaction
vicariously in the achievements of others, as mediocre fathers
do in their brilliant children, or as sympathetic and interested
people do in the whol