regret, that self has introduced itself here. The heartless
loquacity--we must say heartless, for, in a matter of such deep
interest, facility of speech bespeaks the feelings light--the
unshrinking jabber with which people tell you their soul's
history--their past impressions and present difficulties--their
doctrines and their doubts--their manifestations and their
experiences--not in the ear of confidence, to have those doubts removed
and those doctrines verified; not in the ear of anxious inquiry, to
communicate knowledge and give encouragement, but any where, in any
company, and to any body who will listen, the _I_ felt--_I_ thought--_I_
experienced. Sorrows that, if real, should blanch the cheek to think
upon; mercies that enwrap all hearers in amazement, they will tell as
unconcernedly as the adventures of the morning. The voice falters not;
the color changes not; the eye moistens not. And to what purpose all
this personality? To get good, or do good? By no means; but that,
whatever subject they look upon, they always see themselves in the
foreground of the picture, with every minute particular swelled into
importance, while all besides is merged in indistinctness.

We may be assured there is nothing so ill-bred, so annoying, so little
entertaining, so absolutely impertinent, as this habit of talking always
with reference to ourselves; for every body has a self of their own, to
which they attach as much importance as we to ours, and see all others'
matters small in the comparison. The lady of rank has her castles and
her ancestors--they are the foreground of her picture. There they stood
when she came into being; and there they are still, in all the magnitude
of near perspective; and, if her estimate of their real size be not
corrected by experience and good sense, she expects that others will see
them as large as she does. But that will not be so. The lady of wealth
has gotten her houses and lands in the foreground. These are the larger