Our worst disappointments are when we disappoint ourselves. This is the feeling of Chagrin, the painful, inward acknowledgment that we “have made fools of ourselves.” Few reflections are more bitter, or less easily escaped.
Our wisest warnings are often most applicable to ourselves. Steele, deviled by duns, wrote of the disgrace of contracting debts which one cannot pay; and Bacon scribbled wise saws about domestic economy at one end of the room, while his steward was robbing him at the other.
Individuality is anarchic and subversive; it accepts no institution because it is old and reverend; it brings a jewel which fits into no ready-made setting; it cries with Walt Whitman:—
My call is the call of battle; I nourish active rebellion,
He going with me must go well-armed.