“But you stay from choice, you please your bigger self and its demands for beauty,” I went on; “you give up what you want for what you want more.” “Yes,” Virginia said, “for you would be uncomfortable and unhappy if you went.” “You see how silly and childish it is,” I continued, “to give up anything for nothing, to deny yourself pleasures, to make sacrifices for their own sake. That is one of the false virtues which make people self-righteous, ‘goody-goody’ and ridiculous. I know a girl who gave up eating butter during Lent because she liked butter, and she thought it noble to deny herself.” “Yes,” said Virginia, “and I know girls who won’t take sundaes during Lent, but drink sodas instead, because they like sundaes better.” I read aloud to them a Ruskin quotation that Ruth had brought some time ago: “Recollect that ‘mors’ means death, and delaying; and ‘vita’ means life, and growing; and try always, not to mortify yourself, but to vivify yourself.” “You see,” I said, “I believe in being selfish, in the very largest sense. I believe the whole world, all that I know and love, to be my whole self, and I want to make that as good, as true, as harmonious as I can. What people usually call selfishness is only self-limitation, cutting yourself off.” “Yes; it is making yourself little.” “Exactly. Take selfish people, and you will find that they are not only making others unhappy, but making their own lives very small and narrow.” “They are unhappy themselves,” said Florence. I told them a story of three apple seedlings. The first said: “I will not grow; there is so little room; I will not help crowd out the others.” He died, a weakling. The second said: “I will not bear apples, because the effort might spoil the glossy appearance and fulness of my foliage.” He was good to look at, but—useless. The third one said: “Apple-trees were made to bear apples. I like to do it, I want to do it, and I will.” And he did, and so served himself and many beside. “I never could understand the morality,” I said, “that tells us to live only for others.” “It would be impossible,” said Henry; “one has to live first for one’s self.” “And last for one’s self,” I went on, “for that biggest self which is our own life in relation with all that we know. If we lived only for others, others would still live for others, and so on, with no end and no sense. It is like that idea of living for future generations.” “What of it?” asked Marian. “I am particularly interested.” “That we shall live for future generations, and the future generations shall live also for future generations, and so on forever and ever!” “Unless it were all for the last generation,” said Henry. “But that will never come,” I answered, “or, if it does, it will surely not be worth while. I believe that whoever lives the best life for himself, and does the thing he is most impelled to do, for his whole big self, is also best for all others. He must be, since they are a part of him.”