th of character and power for
use. If there is no truth in the criticism, we need not think of it at
all, but live steadily on, knowing that the truth will take care of
itself.

We should be willing that any one should think _anything_ of us, so
long as we have the strength of a good conscience. We should be willing
to appear in any light if that appearance will enhance our use, or is a
necessity of growth. If an awkward appearance is necessary in the
process of our journey toward freedom, we must not resist the fact of
its existence, and should only dwell on it long enough to shun its
cause in so far as we can, and gain the good result of the greater
freedom which will follow.

It is because the suffering from self-consciousness is often so intense
that freedom from it brings, by contrast, so happy and so strong a
sense of power.

There is a school for the treatment of stammerers in this country in
which the pupils are initiated into the process of cure by being
required to keep silence for a week. This would be a most helpful
beginning in a training to overcome self-consciousness. We should
recognize first that we must be willing to endure the effects of
self-consciousness without resistance. Secondly, we should admit that
the root of self-consciousness lies entirely in a selfish desire to
appear well before others. If, while recognizing these two essential
truths and confirming them until they are thoroughly implanted in our
brains, we should quietly persist in going among people, the practice
of silent attention to others would be of the greatest value in gaining
real freedom. The practice of attentive and sympathetic silence might
well be followed by people in general far more than it is. The
protection of a loving, unselfish silence is very great: a silence
which is the result of shunning all selfish, self-assertive, vain, or
affected speech; a silence which is never broken for the sake of
"making conversation," "showing off," or covering selfish
embarrassment; a silence which is full of sympathy and interest,--the
power of such a silence cannot be overestimated.

If we have the evil habit of talking for the sake of winning approval,
we should practise this silence; or if we talk for the sake of calling
attention to ourselves, for the sake of winning sympathy for our
selfish pains and sorrows, or for the sake of indulging in selfish
emotions, nothing can help us more than the habit of loving and
attentive si