but their own concern with it. For example, let the city of Naples be
spoken of: one will tell you what is seen there--what is done
there--what happens there--and making her reflections on all without
naming herself; you will only perceive, by her knowledge and remarks,
that she has been in Naples. Another will tell you how she came there,
and why she went, and how long she staid, and what she did, and what she
saw; and the things themselves will appear but as incidents to the idea
of self.

Some ladies I have known, who, not content with the present display of
their powers, are determined to re-sell their wares at second-hand. They
tell you all the witty things they said to somebody yesterday, and the
wise remarks they made to a certain company last night. _I_ said--_I_
remarked. The commodity should be valuable indeed to be thus brought to
market a second time. Others there are, who, under pretext of
confidence--little complimentary when shown alike to all--pester people
with their own affairs. Before you have been two hours in their company,
you are introduced to all their family, and to all their family's
concerns, pecuniary affairs, domestic secrets, and personal feelings--a
sort of bird's-eye view of every thing that belongs to them--past,
present, and to come; and woe to the secrets of those who may chance to
have been in connection with these egotists; in such a view, you must
needs see ten miles around.

There is an egotism, of which we must speak more seriously. Faults, that
in the world we laugh at, when they attain the dignity and purity of
sacred things, become matter of serious regret. I speak nothing further
of the ostentatious display of pious and benevolent exertion. We live at
a time when religion, its deepest and dearest interests, have become a
subject of general conversation. We would have it so; but we mark, with