By Samuel McChord Crothers
EVERY MAN'S NATURAL DESIRE TO BE SOMEBODY ELSE, by Samuel McChord Crothers, from his “The Dame School of Experience,” 1920.
Samuel McChord Crothers （1857-1927）, American essayist and Unitarian clergyman. In 1894 he went to Cambridge, Massachusetts, as pastor of the First Parish. He has kept alive the literary traditions of old Boston—the earnest culture, the whimsical imagination, the pleasant aloofness from the mad rush of the Gilded Age. The delightful whimsicality of Charles Lamb and the genial optimism of Holmes invest Mr. Crother's essays with a charm that defies analysis.
Several years ago a young man came to my study with a manuscript which he wished me to criticize.
“It is only a little bit of my work,” he said modestly, “and it will not take you long to look it over. In fact it is only the first chapter in which I explain the Universe.”
I suppose that we have all had moments of sudden illumination when it occurred to us that we had explained the Universe, and it was so easy for us that we wondered why we had not done it before. Some thought drifted into our mind and filled us with vague forebodings of omniscience. It was not an ordinary thought, that explained only a fragment of existence. It explained everything. It proved one thing and it proved the opposite just as well. It explained why things are as they are, and if it should turn out that they are not that way at all, it would prove that fact also. In the light of our great thought chaos seems rational.
Such thoughts usually occur about four o'clock in the morning. Having explained the Universe, we relapse into satisfied slumber. When, a few hours later, we rise, we wonder what the explanation was.
Now and then, however, one of these highly explanatory ideas remains to comfort us in our waking hours. Such thought is that which I here throw out, and which has doubtless at some early hour occurred to most of my readers. It is that every man has a natural desire to be somebody else.
This does not explain the Universe, but it explains that perplexing part of it which we call Human Nature. It explains why so many intelligent people, who deal skilfully with matters of fact, make such a mess of it when they deal with their fellow creatures. It explains why we got along as well as we do with strangers, and why we do not get on better with our friends. It explains why people are so often offended when we say nice things about them, and why it is that, when we say harsh things about them, they take it as a compliment. It explains why people marry their opposites and why they live happily ever afterwards. It also explains why some people don't. It explains the meaning of taste and its opposite.
The tactless person treats a person according to a scientific method as if he were a thing. Now, in dealing with a thing you must first find out what it is, and then act accordingly. But with a person, you must find out what he is and then carefully conceal from him the fact that you have made the discovery. The tactless person can never be made to understand this. He prides himself on taking people as they are without being aware that that is not the way they want to be taken.
He has a keen eye for the obvious, and calls attention to it. Age, sex, color, nationality, previous condition of servitude, and all the facts that are interesting to the census-taker, are apparent to him and are made the basis of his conversation. When he meets one who is older than he, he is conscious of the fact, and emphasizes by every polite attention the disparity in years. He has an idea that at a certain period in life the highest tribute of respect is to be urged to rise out of one chair and take another that is presumably more comfortable. It does not occur to him that there may remain any tastes that are not sedentary. On the other hand, he sees a callow youth and addresses himself to the obvious callowness, and thereby makes himself thoroughly disliked. For, strange to say, the youth prefers to be addressed as a person of precocious maturity.
The literalist, observing that most people talk shop, takes it for granted that they like to talk shop. This is a mistake. They do it because it is the easiest thing to do, but they resent having attention called to their limitations. A man's profession does not necessarily coincide with his natural aptitude or with his predominant desire. When you meet a member of the Supreme Court you may assume that he is gifted with a judicial mind. But it does not follow that that is the only quality of mind he has; nor that when, out of court, he gives you a piece of his mind, it will be a piece of his judicial mind that he gives.
My acquaintance with royalty is limited to photographs of royal groups, which exhibit a high degree of domesticity. It would seem that the business of royalty when pursued as a steady job becomes tiresome, and that when they have their pictures taken they endeavor to look as much like ordinary folks as possible—and they usually succeed.
The member of one profession is always flattered by being taken for a skilled practitioner of another. Try it on your minister. Instead of saying, “That was an excellent sermon of yours this morning,” say, “As I listened to your cogent argument, I thought what a successful lawyer you would have made.” Then he will say, “I did think of taking to the law.”
If you had belonged to the court of Frederick the Great you would have proved a poor courtier indeed if you had praised His Majesty's campaigns. Frederick knew that he was a Prussian general, but he wanted to be a French literary man. If you wished to gain his favor you should have said that in your opinion he excelled Voltaire.
We do not like to have too much attention drawn to our present circumstances. They may be well enough in their way, but we can think of something which would be more fitting for us. We have either seen better days or we expect them.
Suppose you had visited Napoleon in Elba and had sought to ingratiate yourself with him.
“Sire,” you would have said, “this is a beautiful little empire of yours, so snug and cozy and quiet. It is just such a domain as is suited to a man in your condition. The climate is excellent. Everything is peaceful. It must be delightful to rule where everything is arranged for you and the details are taken care of by others. As I came to your dominion I saw a line of British frigates guarding your shores. The evidences of such thoughtfulness are everywhere.”
Your praise of his present condition would not have endeared you to Napoleon. You were addressing him as the Emperor of Elba. In his own eyes he was Emperor, though in Elba.
It is such a misapprehension which irritates any mature human being when his environment is taken as the measure of his personality.
The man with a literal mind moves in a perpetual comedy of errors. It is not a question of two Dromios. There are half a dozen Dromios under one hat.
How casually introductions are made, as if it were the easiest thing in the world to make two human beings acquainted! Your friend says “I want you to know Mr. Stifflekin,” and you say that you are happy to know him. But does either of you know the enigma that goes under the name of Stifflekin? You may know what he looks like and where he resides and what he does for a living. But that is all in the present tense. To really know him you must not only know what he is but what he used to be; what he used to think he ought to be and might be if he had worked hard enough. You must know what he might have been if certain things had happened otherwise, and you must know what might have happened otherwise if he had been otherwise. All these complexities are a part of his own dim apprehension of himself. They are what make him so much more interesting to himself than he is to anyone else.
It is this consciousness of the inadequacy of our knowledge which makes us so embarrassed when we offer any service to another. Will he take it in the spirit in which it is given?
That was an awkward moment when Stanley, after all his hardships in his search for Dr. Livingstone, at last found the Doctor by a lake in Central Africa. Stanley held out his hand and said stiffly, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” Stanley had heroically plunged through the equatorial forests to find Livingstone and to bring him back to civilization. But Livingstone was not particularly anxious to be found, and had a decided objection to being brought back to civilization. What he wanted was a new adventure. Stanley did not find the real Livingstone till he discovered that the old man was as young at heart as himself. The two men became acquainted only when they began to plan a new expedition to find the source of the Nile.
The natural desire of every man to be somebody else explains many of the minor irritations of life. It prevents that perfect organization of society in which everyone should know his place and keep it. The desire to be somebody else leads us to practice on work that does not strictly belong to us. We all have aptitudes and talents that overflow the narrow bounds of our trade or profession. Every man feels that he is bigger than his job, and he is all the time doing what theologians called “works of supererogation.”
The serious-minded housemaid is not content to do what she is told to do. She has an unexpended balance of energy. She wants to be a general household reformer. So she goes to the desk of the titular master of the house and gives it a thorough reformation. She arranges the papers according to her idea of neatness. When the poor gentleman returns and finds his familiar chaos transformed into a hateful order, he becomes a reactionary.
The serious manager of a street railway company is not content with the simple duty of transporting passengers cheaply and comfortably. He wants to exercise the functions of a lecturer in an ethical culture society. While the transported victim is swaying precariously from the end of a strap he reads a notice urging him to practice Christian courtesy and not to push. While the poor wretch pores over this counsel of perfection, he feels like answering as did Junius to the Duke of Grafton, “My Lord, injuries may be atoned for and forgiven, but insults admit of no compensation.”
A man enters a barber shop with the simple desire of being shaved. But he meets with the more ambitious desire of the barber. The serious barber is not content with any slight contribution to human welfare. He insists that his client shall be shampooed, manicured, massaged, steamed beneath boiling towels, cooled off by electric fans, and, while all this is going on, that he shall have his boots blacked.
Have you never marveled at the patience of people in having so many things done to them that they don't want, just to avoid hurting the feeling of professional people who want to do more than is expected of them? You watch the stoical countenance of the passenger in a Pullman car as he stands up to be brushed. The chances are that he does not want to be brushed. He would prefer to leave the dust on his coat rather than to be compelled to swallow it. But he knows what is expected of him. It is a part of the solemn ritual of traveling. It precedes the offering.
The fact that every man desires to be somebody else explains many of the aberrations of artists and literary men. The painters, dramatists, musicians, poets, and novelists are just as human as housemaids and railway managers and porters. They want to do “all the good they can to all the people they can in all the ways they can.” They get tired of the ways they are used to and like to try new combinations. So they are continually mixing things. The practitioner of one art tries to produce effects that are proper to another art.
A musician wants to be a painter and use his violin as if it were a brush. He would have us see the sunset glories that he is painting for us. A painter wants to be a musician and paint symphonies, and he is grieved because the uninstructed cannot hear his pictures, although the colors do swear at each other. Another painter wants to be an architect and build up his picture as if it were made of cubes of brick. It looks like brickwork, but to the natural eye it doesn't look like a picture. A prose writer gets tired of writing prose and wants to be a poet. So he begins every line with a capital letter, and keeps on writing prose.
You go to the theater with the simple-minded Shakespearean idea that the play is the thing. But the playwright wants to be a pathologist. So you discover that you have dropped into a gruesome clinic. You sought innocent relaxation, but you are one of the nonelect and have gone to the place prepared for you. You must see the thing through. The fact that you have troubles of your own is not a sufficient claim for exemption.
Or you take up a novel expecting it to be a work of fiction. But the novelist has other views. He wants to be your spiritual adviser. He must do something to your mind, he must rearrange your fundamental ideas, he must massage your soul, and generally brush you off. All this in spite of the fact that you don't want to be brushed off and set to rights. You don't want him to do anything to your mind. It's the only mind you have and you need it in your own business.
But if the desire of every man to be somebody else accounts for many whimsicalities of human conduct and for many aberrations in the arts, it cannot be lightly dismissed as belonging only to the realm of comedy. It has its origin in the nature of things. The reason why every man wants to be somebody else is that he can remember the time when he was somebody else. What we call personal identity is a very changeable thing, as all of us realize when we look over old photographs and old letters.
The oldest man now living is but a few years removed from the undifferentiated germ plasm, which might have developed into almost anything. In the beginning he was a bundle of possibilities. Every actuality that is developed means a decrease in the rich variety of possibilities. In becoming one thing it becomes impossible to be something else.
The delight in being a boy lies in the fact that the possibilities are still manifold. The boy feels that he can be anything that he desires. He is conscious that he has capacities that would make him a successful banker. On the other hand, there are attractions in a life of adventure in the South Seas. It would be pleasant to lie under a bread-fruit tree and let the fruit drop into his mouth, to the admiration of the gentle savages who would gather about him. Or he might be a saint—not a commonplace modern saint who does chores and attends tiresome committee meetings, but a saint such as one reads about, who gives away his rich robes and his purse of gold to the first beggar he meets, and then goes on his carefree way through the forest to convert interesting robbers. He feels that he might practice that kind of unscientific charity, if his father would furnish him with the money to give away.
But by and by he learns that making a success in the banking business is not consistent with excursions to the South Seas or with the more picturesque and unusual forms of saintliness. If he is to be in a bank he must do as the bankers do.
Parents and teachers conspire together to make a man of him, which means making a particular kind of man of him. All mental processes which are not useful must be suppressed. The sum of their admonitions is that he must pay attention. That is precisely what he is doing. He is paying attention to a variety of things that escape the adult mind. As he wriggles on the bench in the schoolroom, he pays attention to all that is going on. He attends to what is going on out of doors;he sees the weak points of his fellow pupils, against whom he is planning punitive expeditions; and he is delightfully conscious of the idiosyncrasies of the teacher. Moreover, he is a youthful artist and his sketches from life give acute joy to his contemporaries when they are furtively passed around.
But the schoolmaster says sternly, “My boy, you must learn to pay attention; that is to say, you must not pay attention to so many things, but you must pay attention to one thing, namely, the second declension.”
Now the second declension is the least interesting thing in the room, but unless he confines his attention to it he will never learn it. Education demands narrowing of attention in the interest of efficiency.
A man may, by dint of application to a particular subject, become a successful merchant or real-estate man or chemist or overseer of the poor. But he cannot be all these things at the same time. He must make his choice. Having in the presence of witnesses taken himself for better for worse, he must, forsaking all others, cleave to that alone. The consequence is that, by the time he is forty, he has become one kind of man, and is able to do one kind of work. He has acquired a stock of ideas true enough for his purposes, but not so transcendentally true as to interfere with his business. His neighbors know where to find him, and they do not need to take a spiritual elevator. He does business on the ground floor. He has gained in practicality, but has lost in the quality of interestingness.
The old prophet declared that the young men dream dreams and the old men see visions, but he did not say anything about the middle-aged men.They have to look after the business end.
But has the man whose working hours are so full of responsibilities changed so much as he seems to have done? When he is talking shop is he “all there”? I think not. There are elusive personalities that are in hiding. As the rambling mansions of the old Catholic families had secret panels opening into the “priest's hole,” to which the family resorted for spiritual comfort, so in the mind of the most successful man there are secret chambers where are hidden his unsuccessful ventures, his romantic ambitions, his unfulfilled promises. All that he dreamed of as possible is somewhere concealed in the man's heart. He would not for the world have the public know how much he cares for the selves that have not had a fair chance to come into the light of day. You do not know a man until you know his lost Atlantis, and his Utopia for which he still hopes to set sail.
When Dogberry asserted that he was “as pretty a piece of flesh as any is in Messina” and “one that hath two gowns and everything handsome about him,” he was pointing out what he deemed to be quite obvious. It was in a more intimate tone that he boasted, “and a fellow that hath had losses.”
When Julius Cæsar rode through the streets of Rome in his chariot, his laurel crown seemed to the populace a symbol of his present greatness. But gossip has it that Cæsar at that time desired to be younger than he was, and that before appearing in public he carefully arranged his laurel wreath so as to conceal the fact that he had had losses.
Much that passes for pride in the behavior of the great comes from the fear of the betrayal of emotions that belong to a simpler manner of life. When the sons of Jacob saw the great Egyptian officer to whom they appealed turn away from them, they little knew what was going on. “And Joseph made haste, for his bowels did yearn upon his brothers; and he sought where to weep; and he entered into his chamber and wept there. And he washed his face, and went out and refrained himself.” Joseph didn't want to be a great man. He wanted to be human. It was hard to refrain himself.
What of the lost arts of childhood, the lost audacities and ambitions and romantic admirations of adolescence? What becomes of the sympathies which make us feel our kinship to all sorts of people? What becomes of the early curiosity in regard to things which were none of our business? We ask as Saint Paul asked of the Galatians, “Ye began well; who did hinder you?”
The answer is not wholly to our discredit. We do not develop all parts of our nature because we are not allowed to do so. Walt Whitman might exult over the Spontaneous Me. But nobody is paid for being spontaneous. A spontaneous switchman on the railway would be a menace to the traveling public. We prefer someone less temperamental.
As civilization advances and work becomes more specialized, it becomes impossible for anyone to find free and full development for all his natural powers in any recognized occupation. What then becomes of the other selves? The answer must be that playgrounds must be provided for them outside the confines of daily business. As work becomes more engrossing and narrowing the need is more urgent for recognized and carefully guarded periods of leisure.
The old Hebrew sage declared, “Wisdom cometh from the opportunity of leisure.” It does not mean that a wise man must belong to what we call the leisure classes. It means that if one has only a little free time at his disposal, he must use that time for the refreshment of his hidden selves. If he cannot have a Sabbath rest of twenty-four hours, he must learn to sanctify little Sabbaths, it may be of ten minutes' length. In them he shall do no manner of work. It is not enough that the self that works and receives wages shall be recognized and protected; the world must be made safe for our other selves. Does not the Declaration of Independence say that every man has an inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness?
To realize that men are not satisfied with themselves requires imagination, and we have had a terrible example of what misfortunes come from the lack of imagination. The Prussian militarists had a painstaking knowledge of facts, but they had a contempt for human nature. Their tactlessness was almost beyond belief. They treated persons as if they were things. They treated facts with deadly seriousness, but had no regard for feelings. They had spies all over the world to report all that could be seen, but they took no account of what could not be seen. So, while they were dealing scientifically with the obvious facts and forces, all the hidden powers of the human soul were being turned against them. Prussianism insisted on highly specialized men who have no sympathies to interfere with their efficiency. Having adopted a standard, all variations must be suppressed. It was against this effort to suppress the human variations that the world fought. We did not want men to be reduced to one pattern. And against the effort to produce a monotonous uniformity we must keep on fighting. It was of little use to dethrone the Kaiser if we submit to other tyrants of our own making.
Notes
illumination, spiritual or mental enlightenment.
forebodings, forewarnings; presentiments.
omniscience, all-knowing; knowing everything.
relapse, slip or fall back into the former state or condition.
Human Nature, man's natural endowment or essential character.
make such a mess, do so badly; muddle up; make such mistakes.
tactless, characterized by want of tact. Tact is the nice discernment of the best course of action under given conditions, especially ability to deal with others without giving offense.
the obvious, that which is easily discovered, seen, or understood; that which is in full view.
census-taker, is he who is delegated to make an official enumeration of the population of a locality, generally with classified social and economic statistics.
disparity, difference; inequality.
in years, in age.
at a certain period in life, at an advanced age; when one is old in years.
sedentary, inactive; confined to the chair.
callow, unfledged; immature; green.
precocious maturity, matured much more rapidly than is natural;abnormal development in physical and mental traits, so that the youth is beyond what is natural.
literalist, one who is inclined to follow the letter, or literal sense, or literal interpretations.
talk shop, talk about one's business or occupation, especially when introduced unseasonably.
royalty, kings and emperors, and their immediate family.
domesticity, conforming to domestic or household life.
practitioner, one actually engaged in the practice of a profession.
cogent, appealing forcefully to the reason; convincing; telling; effective.
Frederick the Great, Frederick II （1712-1786）, king of Prussia （1740-1786）, the man who made Prussia one of the great powers of the world. He encouraged art and architecture; he wrote much in prose; all of his writing is in French. He invited Voltaire to stay in the Prussian court, an unhappy experience it proved for Voltaire.
courtier, one in attendance at the court of a prince.
His Majesty's campaigns, Frederick the Great's success in battle.
Voltaire, Jean François Marie Arouet de Voltaire （1694-1778）, the celebrated French philosopher and author.
Napoleon in Elba. After the Treaty of Paris in 1814, Napoleon was exiled to the Island of Elba off the coast of Tuscany, from which he escaped in 1815, only to be defeated in Waterloo after his too brief Hundred Days' Reign.
British frigates, the British warships were there to keep Napoleon from escaping.
Dromios, two Dromios, twin servants to twin brothers in Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors.
Mr. Stifflekin, any other name would do as well.
Stanley, Henry M. （1841-1904） and David Livingstone （1813-1873） were both African explorers. Stanley, as correspondent of the New York Herald, found Livingstone in 1869 in the heart of Africa, after Livingstone had been reported lost for many years. Stanley tells the story vividly in his book How I Found Livingstone（1872）.
equatorial, belonging near the equator.
source of the Nile, the head of the Nile River, which flows through Egypt and empties into the Mediterranean Sea.
minor irritations, the small matters that cause momentary impatience or anger.
theologians, persons well-versed in theology, the science of God or of religion; preachers.
“works or supererogation, ” doing more than duty requires.
unexpended balance of energy, enough energy left over.
titular master, in name the master, implying that he may not be the real master, because his wife may be the actual ruler of the home.
familiar chaos. His desk was formerly in a bad mess, but he knew where everythihg was to be found. Hence, familiar chaos.
hateful order. Everything was now in proper order after the housemaid had straighten things out, but to the master that orderliness was hateful, because now he knew not where to look for his things.
reactionary, one who seeks to undo political, here household, progress; one who seeks to turn order into disorder.
ethical culture, for teaching the passengers the proper moral feelings and conduct.
counsel of perfection, advice on how to be perfect.
Junius, the pseudonym of an English political writer （1768-1777） considered by many to be Sir Philip Francis （1740-1818）. Mr. Tang Leang-li （汤良礼） calls himself Junius Sinicus （Chinese Junius） in the People's Tribune.
Duke of Grafton, Henry Augustus Fitzroy, third Duke of Grafton, censured by Junius, in the article quoted, for escorting a woman of questionable morals to the theater and thus insulting all the sisters, wives, and mothers of the regular patrons of the theater.
client, the customer who is employing the services of the barber.
stoical, not giving sign of any feeling or emotion.
Pullman car, sleeping car in American railways are called Pullman cars, after George Mortimer Pullman （1831-1897）, who invented the first Pullman car in 1859.
the offering, the tipping.
aberrations, strayings from the path; breaking of rules.
symphonies, consonance or harmony of sounds, as in an instrumental composition in sonata form for a full orchestra; also, harmony of color in painting.
swear, curse; scold:—because the colors do not harmonize.
pathologist, one skilled in the science of treating diseases, their nature, causes, progress, results.
clinic, instruction of a class by examination and treatment of patients in its presence.
nonelect, nonchosen, that is, not belonging to the group that is up to date on the latest literary developments.
exemption, release or freedom from an obligation imposed by others.
whimsicalities, tendency towards being odd, queer, fantastic, fanciful.
personal identity, personal likeness or resemblance.
undifferentiated germ plasm, the germ cells that pide but do not develop different characteristics.
South Seas, the South Sea Islands.
bread-fruit, a Polynesian moraceous tree. The tree bears a large round fruit from four to seven inches in diameter, and when baked, somewhat resembles bread. It is the staple food throughout the South Pacific Islands.
saint, a holy or godly person.
modern saint is a modern man who has to work so hard to earn a living that he has become sanctified.
admonitions, authoritative advice or warning.
escape, elude; get out of the way of.
idiosyncrasies, a person's peculiar physical or mental charaeteristics.
sketches from life, drawings of persons around him, his classmates, the teacher.
furtively, secretly; stealthily; slyly.
by dint of application, by force of paying particular attention; by fixing one's mind closely or attentively to a particular subject.
real-estate man, an agent who negotiates the sale of property, land, and houses. Landed property is known as real estate.
taken himself for better for worse, an echo of the marriage oath as pronounced in Christian churches, meaning “no matter what may happen to him.”
take a spiritual elevator, probe into what he thinks; find out what his mind is dwelling on.
He does business on the ground floor. He is there at his occupation all the time so that it is very easy to locate him and to label him.
The old prophet, Joel, in the Old Testament of the Bible, the Book of Joel, Chapter II, verse 28:
“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.” The same words were uttered by Peter in the Book of Acts, Chapter II, verse 17, of the New Testament.
“all there, ” completely there. Is he paying his whole attention to what you are saying; is the whole of him there besides you?
“priest's hole, ” a secret place of worship, necessary in times of religious persecution.
lost Atlantis, a mythical island in the west, beyond the Pillars of Hercules （Gibraltar, at the western entrance into the Mediterranean Sea）, mentioned by Plato, Pliny, and other ancient writers, and said to have been sunk beneath the ocean by an earthquake. Lord Bacon has written a “New Atlantis” in which a British vessel is carried by contrary winds to the lost Atlantis.
Utopia, the ideal state proposed by Thomas More （1478-1535）, in a book entitled “Utopia.” The word Utopia has been applied to all the pictures of ideal states created by social philosophers and visionaries.
Dogberry, the stupid constable in Shakespeare's “Much Ado About Nothing.”
Messina, in northeast Sicily, Italy, where the action of this Shakespearean play takes place.
Julius Cæsar, the great Roman general, statesman, and writer （100-44 B.C.）.
laurel crown, worn by only those Greek and Romans who have won distinction, and worn as a sign of distinction.
he had had losses in his hair; in other words, Cæsar was partially bald-headed, and he tried to arrange his laurel crown so that it concealed the bald spot on his head.
the sons of Jacob. Consult the Bible, the Book of Genesis, Chapters XLII-XLVI for the whole of this story.
audacities, qualities of being daring, adventurous, bold.
adolescence, youth, or the period between puberty and maturity.
as Saint Paul asked of the Galatians, see the Bible, the Book of Galatians, Chapter V, verse 7.
Walt Whitman （1819-1892）, American poet. In 1855 the first edition of his “Leaves of Grass” appeared, which met with very little critical approval because of its frankness and its unconventional verse form. But his influence on later generations of poets was incalculable, not only by releasing poetry from accepted traditions, but by immensely expanding the thematic material.
Spontaneous Me, the inpidual acting without external stimulus but wholly from an inner impulse or energy.
spontaneous switchman on the railway, switchmen on railways must obey orders as to which switch to open and when, otherwise trains will be sent crashing one into another. A spontaneous switchman, one who opens switches as and when he pleases without regard to orders from those above him who know better, would be a menace to the traveling public.
temperamental, nervous; characterized by a strongly marked physical or mental character, especially artistic or nervous; liable to peculiar moods.
playgrounds, used figuratively here to mean opportunities for indulging our other selves, just as playgrounds are provided for children to play in and expend their excess energy.
confines, limits; boundaries; demands.
Sabbath, in the Jewish calendar, the seventh day of the week, observed by Jews and Christians as a day of rest and worship. The Christians call the Sabbath Sunday.
The Declaration of Independence, the American Declaration of Independence, when the Americans, on July 4, 1776, declared themselves to be free and independent of Greet Britain.
inalienable, incapable of being estranged or taken away from them.
Prussian militarists, referring to the Prussian military leaders who controlled the destiny of the German nation previous to the Great World War which broke out in 1914.
the Kaiser, William II （1859-1941）, king of Prussia and Kaiser of Germany from 1888 to 1918 when, at the close of Great World War, he was forced to abdicate. Later he lived in retirement in Holland. The German word Kaiser and the Russian word Czar come from the Latin word Cæsar, originating with the imperialistic designs of Julius Cæsar.
Questions
1. What is the author's purpose in the first nineteen lines?
2. What is the author's “highly explanatory idea”? What does it explain?
3. What are the mistakes of a tactless person?
4. What is the meaning of “There are half a dozen Dromios under one hat”?
5. What is it that makes it embarrassing to offer service to another?
6. Why do we practice on work that does not strictly belong to us?
7. How does the desire to be somebody else explain many of the aberrations of artists and writers?
8. What is the origin of the desire to be somebody else?
9. Explain how the choice of a profession and specialized education makes the possibilities for self-realization less and less.
10. What becomes of the other selves? Is it desirable that they should exist? How may they be provided for?
参考译文
【作品简介】
《人人想当别人》选自塞缪尔·麦考德·克罗瑟斯1920年发表的《经验女校》一文。
【作者简介】
塞缪尔·麦考德·克罗瑟斯（1857—1927），美国散文家和一位论派牧师。1894年，他来到马萨诸塞州的剑桥，担任第一教区的牧师。他继承了昔日波士顿的文学传统——真诚的文化态度，天马行空的想象，对疯狂镀金时代的冷漠超然态度。令人愉快而又异想天开的查尔斯·兰姆和亲切乐观的霍尔姆斯[1]赋予克罗瑟斯先生的散文难以尽述的魅力。