The man who is aware of himself is henceforth independent; and he is never bored, and life is only too short, and he is steeped through and through with a profound yet temperate happiness. He alone lives, while other people, slaves of ceremony, let life slip past them in a kind of dream. Once conform, once do what other people do finer than they do it, and a lethargy steals over all the finer nerves and faculties of the soul. He becomes all outer show and inward emptiness; dull, callous, and indifferent.