to be impersonal; all one
desires to feel is that their interest and sympathy is not, so to
speak, tethered by the leg, and only able to hobble in a small and
trodden circle. One does not want people to suppress their personality,
but to be ready to compare it with the personalities of others, rather
than to refer other personalities to the standard of their own; to be
generous and expansive, if possible, and if that is not possible, or
not easy, to be prepared, at least, to take such deliberate steps as
all can take, in the right direction. We can all force ourselves to
express interest in the tastes and idiosyncrasies of others, we can ask
questions, we can cultivate relations. The one way in which we can all
of us improve, is to commit ourselves to a course of action from which
we shall be ashamed to draw back. Many people who would otherwise drift
into self-regarding ways do this when they marry. They may marry for
egotistical reasons; but once inside the fence, affection and duty and
the amazing experience of having children of their own give them the
stimulus they need. But even the most helpless celibate has only to
embark upon relations with others, to find them multiply and increase.
After all, egotism has little to do with the forming or holding of
strong opinions, or even with the intentness with which we pursue our
aims. The dog is the intentest of all animals, and throws himself most
eagerly into his pursuits, but he is also the least egotistical and the
most sympathetic of creatures. Egotism resides more in a kind of proud
isolation, in a species of contempt for the opinions and aims of
others. It is not, as a rule, the most successful men who are the most
egotistical. The most uncompromisingly egotist I know is a would-be
literary man, who has the most pathetic belief in the interest and
significance of his own very halting performances, a belief which no
amount of rejection or indifference can shake, and who has hardly a
good word for the books of other writers. I have sometimes thought that
it is in his case a species of mental disease, because he is an acute
critic of all work except his own. Doctors will indeed tell one that
transcendent egotism is very nearly allied to insanity; but in ordinary
cases a little common sense and a little courtesy will soon suppress
the manifestations of the tendency, if a man can only realize that the
forming of decided opinions is the cheapest luxury in the world, while