would be if I were a dead philosopher, are probably aware of certain
points in me which may not be included in my most active suspicion. We
sing an exquisite passage out of tune and innocently repeat it for the
greater pleasure of our hearers. Who can be aware of what his foreign
accent is in the ears of a native? And how can a man be conscious of
that dull perception which causes him to mistake altogether what will
make him agreeable to a particular woman, and to persevere eagerly in a
behaviour which she is privately recording against him? I have had some
confidences from my female friends as to their opinion of other men whom
I have observed trying to make themselves amiable, and it has occurred
to me that though I can hardly be so blundering as Lippus and the rest
of those mistaken candidates for favour whom I have seen ruining their
chance by a too elaborate personal canvass, I must still come under the
common fatality of mankind and share the liability to be absurd without
knowing that I am absurd. It is in the nature of foolish reasoning to
seem good to the foolish reasoner. Hence with all possible study of
myself, with all possible effort to escape from the pitiable illusion
which makes men laugh, shriek, or curl the lip at Folly's likeness, in
total unconsciousness that it resembles themselves, I am obliged to
recognise that while there are secrets in me unguessed by others, these
others have certain items of knowledge about the extent of my powers and
the figure I make with them, which in turn are secrets unguessed by me.
When I was a lad I danced a hornpipe with arduous scrupulosity, and
while suffering pangs of pallid shyness was yet proud of my superiority
as a dancing pupil, imagining for myself a high place in the estimation
of beholders; but I can now picture the amusement they had in the
incongruity of my solemn face and ridiculous legs. What sort of hornpipe
am I dancing now?

Thus if I laugh at you, O fellow-men! if I trace with curious interest