Most human beings fancy themselves, and all their belongings, to be quite different from all other beings and the belongings of all other beings.  I heard an old lady, whose son is a rifleman, and just like all the other volunteers of his corps, lately declare, that, on the occasion of a certain grand review, her Tom looked so entirely different from all the rest.  No doubt he did to her, poor old lady,—­for he was her own.  But the irritating thing was, that the old lady wished it to be admitted that Tom’s superiority was an actual fact, equally patent to the eyes of all mankind.  Yes, my friend:  it is a thing very slowly learnt by most men, that they are very much like other people.  You see the principle which underlies what you hear so often said by human beings, young and old, when urging you to do something which it is against your general rule to do.  “Oh, but you might do it for me!” Why for you more than for any one else? would be the answer of severe logic.  But a kindly man would not take that ground:  for doubtless the Me, however little to every one else, is to each unit in humankind the centre of all the world.

Arising out of this mistaken notion of their own difference from all other men is the fancy entertained by many, that they occupy a much greater space in the thoughts of others than they really do.  Most folk think mainly about themselves and their own affairs.  Even a matter which “everybody is talking about” is really talked about by each for a very small portion of the twenty-four hours.  And a name which is “in everybody’s mouth” is not in each separate mouth for more than a few minutes at a time.  And during those few minutes, it is talked of with an interest very faint, when compared with that you feel for yourself.  You fancy it a terrible thing, when you yourself have to do something which you would think nothing about, if done by anybody else.  A lady grows sick, and has to go out of church during the sermon.  Well, you remark it; possibly, indeed, you don’t; and you say, “Mrs. Thomson went out of church to-day; she must be ill”; and there the matter ends.  But a day or two later you see Mrs. Thomson, and find her quite in a fever at the awful fact.  It was a dreadful trial, walking out, and facing all the congregation:  they must have thought it so strange; she would not run the risk of it again for any inducement.  The fact is just this:  Mrs. Thomson thinks a great deal of the thing, because it happened to herself.  It did not happen to the other people, and so they hardly think of it at all.  But nine in every ten of them, in Mrs. Thomson’s place, would have Mrs. Thomson’s feeling; for it is a thing which you, my reader, slowly learn, that people think very little about you.