There is an old story about
Scott and Wordsworth, when the latter stayed at Abbotsford; Scott,
during the whole visit, was full of little pleasant and courteous
allusions to Wordsworth's poems; and one of the guests present
records how at the end of the visit not a single word had ever
passed Wordsworth's lips which could have indicated that he knew his
host to have ever written a line of poetry or prose.
I was sitting the other day at a function next a man of some
eminence, and I was really amazed at the way in which he discoursed
of himself and his habits, his diet, his hours of work, and the
blank indifference with which he received similar confidences. He
merely waited till the speaker had finished, and then resumed his
own story.
It is this sort of solemn egotism which makes us overvalue our
anxieties quite out of all proportion to their importance, because
they all appear to us as integral elements of a dignified drama in
which we enact the hero's part. We press far too heavily on the
sense of responsibility; and if we begin by telling boys, as is too
often done in sermons, that whatever they do or say is of far-
reaching consequence, that every lightest word may produce an
effect, that any carelessness of speech or example may have
disastrous effects upon the character of another, we are doing our
best to encourage the self-emphasis which is the very essence of
priggishness.
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