A very good common place counsel is Self Identity to bid our own hearts not to forget our own selves and always to keep self in the first place lest all the world who always keeps us behind it should forget us all together — forget not thyself and the world will not forget thee — forget thyself and the world will willingly forget thee till thou art nothing but a living-dead man dwelling among shadows and falshood
The mother may forget her child
That dandled on her lap has been
The bridegroom may forget the bride
That he was wedded to yestreen1
But I cannot forget that I’m a man and it would be dishonest and unmanly in me to do so
Self Identity is one of the finest principles in everybodys life and fills up the outline of honest truth in the decision of character — a person who denies himself must either be a mad man or a coward
I am often troubled at times to know that should the world have the impudence not to know me but willingly forget2 me wether any single individual would be honest enough to know me — such people would be usefull as the knocker to a door or the bell of a cryer to own the dead alive or the lost found there are two impossibillities which can never happen — I shall never be in three places at once nor ever change to a woman and that ought to be some comfort amid this moral or immoral ‘changing’ in life — truth has a bad herald when she is obliged to take lies for her trumpeters — surely every man has the liberty to know himself
Tis Liberty alone that gives the flower
Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume
And we are weeds without it.
[N6, 23]