“Yes,” said Marian, “I often do. Sometimes I laugh at myself. I see how foolish I am, but I go right on. For the actor and the spectator do not always agree.”
I said: “All goodness and power in life spring from making the actor and spectator agree, making the larger self include and manage the smaller self, and move it as a player moves a pawn. For, remember, it is not two separate selves, but one self, a vast sense of all life, inclusive of this smaller self which we control. Do you not realize that all heroism, all great and noble action is done so, in the spirit of the whole, for the vast spectator within us? When a man dies for a cause, he is that cause, he is far more than his own small self, and he gladly dies for that which includes and fulfils him. When a man gives up his life to save another man, he sees the whole thing as from above. He and the other man are one, are part of the same life, and he spends himself for himself.
“Fear,” I said, “cowardice, loss of self-control in crises, always comes when the actor forgets the spectator, when the spectator loses control.
“If ever you have been in any exciting crisis, and kept cool and above fear, then you will know what I mean; how you think of the whole, of all the people, and seem to be and control the whole.”
Ruth said she knew one never thought especially of one’s self at such a time. Experiences, however, were scarce. Virginia spoke of the time she was with me in a burning trolley car, and how she had been interested rather than excited. But then she was a very, very little girl. Ruth said she didn’t remember how she felt when she was almost run down by an automobile.
Marian asked: “One is not always conscious of the spectator?”
“No,” I answered, “one is conscious of him only at rare moments. For it is the actor who acts and lives, and the spectator controls him. The spectator is oftenest silent. He watches. And he must choose.”
“But is the spectator always sure?” asked Marian. “Sometimes you cannot tell what seems to you best, until you talk it over with others.”
“The spectator,” I said, “judges and chooses according to all he can know. Surely, he chooses in relation with others. He can use all experience; he goes even beyond his sorrow and pain. Do you understand? He goes beyond sorrow and pain, and uses them. Do you remember I spoke to you once of all things being a memory, of the body itself being a memory? The basis of all sympathy is experience and memory. So the spectator grows and uses everything. He is, as it were, in partnership with the whole, with God. And he rises on his own knowledge. The higher he goes, the farther can he see. Do you understand that aloofness, the judging from the standpoint of the whole, of the whole self, is the basis of morality? It is the part judging and living for the whole. Those who know this make the laws for all, according to their knowledge; and the others, who are only actors, whose spectator is not wide awake, have to obey.”