False pride leads its victim to want to make a false impression.  He puts on a false appearance.  He wishes to appear wiser, better, in easier circumstances, richer than he is.  He wears a false front.  He is unnatural.  He dare not—­having decided to make the appearance, and win the impression of falseness—­be natural.  Hence he is self-conscious all the time lest he make a slip, contradict himself, lose the result he is seeking to attain.  He is to be compared to an actor whose part requires him to wear a wig, a false moustache, a false chin.  In the hurry of preparation these shams are not adjusted properly and the actor rushes on the stage fearful every moment lest his wig is awry, his moustache fall off, or the chin slip aside and make him ridiculous.  He dare not stop to make sure, to “fix” them if they are wrong, as that would reveal their falsity immediately.  He can only play on, sweating blood the while.

In the case of the actor one can laugh at the temporary fear and worry, but what a truly pitiable object is the man, the woman, whose whole life is one dread worry lest his, her, false appearance be discovered.  And while pride and vanity are not the only sources of these attempts to make false impressions upon others they are a most prolific source.  In another chapter I have treated more fully of this phase of the subject.

Wastefulness, extravagance, is a prolific source of worry.  Spend to-day, starve to-morrow.  Throw your money to the birds to-day; to-morrow the crow, jay, and vulture will laugh and mock at you.  Feast to-day; next week you may starve.  Riches take to themselves wings and fly away.  No one is absolutely safe, and while many thousands go through life indifferent about their expenditures, wasteful and extravagant and do not seem to be brought to time therefor, it must not be forgotten that tens of thousands start out to do the same thing and fail.  What is the result?  Worry over the folly of the attempt; worry as to where the necessary things for the future are coming from!

While I would not have the well-to-do feel that they must be niggardly I would earnestly warn them against extravagance, against the acquiring of expensive habits of wastefulness that later on may be chains of a cruel bondage.  Why forge fetters upon oneself?  Far better be free now and thus cultivate freedom for whatever future may come.  For as sure as sure can be wilful waste and reckless extravagance now will sometime or other produce worry.

One great, deep, awful source of worry is our failure to accept the inevitable.  Something happens,—­we wilfully shut our eyes to the fact that this something has changed forever the current of our lives, and if the new current seems evil, if it brings discomfort, separation, change of circumstance, etc., we worry, and worry, and continue to worry.  This is lamentably foolish, utterly absurd and altogether reprehensible.  Let us resolutely face the facts, accept them, and then reshape our lives, bravely and valiantly, to suit the new conditions.