=IV=

There are three other bug-a-boos, besides the Modesty Bug-a-boo that America will have to face and drive out of the way before it can be truly said to have a national character or to have grown up and found itself.  There is the Goody-good Bug-a-boo, the Consistency Bug-a-boo, and the Bug-a-boo that Thomas Jefferson if he were living now, would never never ride in a carriage.

Each of these bug-a-boos in the general mistiness and muddle-headiness of the time can be seen going about, saying, “Boo!  Boo!” to this democracy from day to day and year to year, keeping it scared into not getting what it wants.

There is not one of them that will not evaporate in ten minutes the first morning we get some real news through in this country about ourselves and about what we are like.

What is the real news about us, for instance, as regards being goody-good?

I can only begin with the news for one.

For years, I have held myself back from taking a plain or possibly loud stand for goodness as a shrewd, worldly-wise program for American business and public life, because I was afraid of people, and afraid people would think I was trying to improve them.

What was worse, I was afraid of myself too.  I was afraid I really would.

I am afraid now, or rather I would be, if I had not drilled through to the news about myself and about other people and about human nature that I am putting into this chapter.

* * * * *

I have written five hundred pages in this book on an awkward and dangerous subject like the Golden Rule, and I appeal to the reader—­I ask him humbly, hopefully, gratefully if he can honestly say (except for a minute here and there when I have been tired and slipped up), if he has really felt improved or felt that I was trying to improve him in this book.

On your honour, Gentle Reader—­you who have been with me five hundred pages!

You say “Yes”?

Then I appeal to your sense of fairness.  If you truly feel I have been trying to improve you in this book, turn this leaf down here and stop.  It is only fair to me.  Close the book with your improved and being improved feeling and never open it again until it passes over.  You have no right to go on page after page calling me names, as it were, right in the middle of my own book in this way behind my back, you!—­hundreds and thousands of miles away from me, by your own lamp, by your own window—­you come to me here between these two helpless pasteboard covers where I cannot get out at you, where I cannot answer back, and you say that I am trying to improve you!