t that things
rarely happen as you anticipate them, and thus that your anticipation of
the thing might possibly keep it away? Of course you have; for you are
a human being. And in all common cases, a watch might as well think to
keep a skilful watchmaker in ignorance of the way in which its movements
are produced, as a human being think to prevent another human being from
knowing exactly how he will think and feel in given circumstances. We
have watched the working of our own watches far too closely and long,
my friends, to have the least difficulty in understanding the great
principles upon which the watches of other men go. I cannot look inside
your breast, my reader, and see the machinery that is working there: I
mean the machinery of thought and feeling. But I know exactly how it
works, nevertheless; for I have long watched a machinery precisely like
it.

There are a great many people in this world who feel that things are all
wrong, that they have missed stays in life, that they are beaten,--and
yet who don't much mind. They are indurated by long use. They do not try
to disguise from themselves the facts. There are some men who diligently
try to disguise the facts, and who in some measure succeed in doing so.
I have known a self-sufficient and disagreeable clergyman who had a
church in a large city. Five-sixths of the seats in the church were
quite empty; yet the clergyman often talked of what a good congregation
he had, with a confidence which would have deceived any one who had not
seen it. I have known a church where it was agony to any one with an ear
to listen to the noise produced when the people were singing; yet the
clergyman often talked of what splendid music he had. I have known an
entirely briefless barrister, whose friends gave out that the sole
reason why he had no briefs was that he did not want any. I have known
students who did not get the prizes for which they competed, but who
declared that the reason of their failure was, that, though they
competed for the prizes, they did not wish to get them. I have known a
fast young woman, after many engagements made and broken, marry as the
last resort a brainless and penniless blackguard; yet all her family
talk in big terms of what a delightful connection she was making. Now,
where all that self-deception is genuine, let us be glad to see it; and
let us not, like Mr. Snarling, take a spiteful pleasure in undeceiving
those who are so happy to be deceived.