who has hardly a good word for the books of other writers.  I have sometimes thought that it is in his case a species of mental disease, because he is an acute critic of all work except his own.  Doctors will indeed tell one that transcendent egotism is very nearly allied to insanity; but in ordinary cases a little common sense and a little courtesy will soon suppress the manifestations of the tendency, if a man can only realize that the forming of decided opinions is the cheapest luxury in the world, while a licence to express them uncompromisingly is one of the most expensive.  Perhaps the hardest kind of egotism to cure, is the egotism that is combined with a deferential courtesy, and the power of displaying a superficial sympathy, because an egotist of this type so seldom encounters any checks which would convince him of his fault.  Such people, if they have natural ability, often achieve great success, because they pursue their own ambitions with relentless perseverance, and have the tact to do it without appearing to interfere with the designs of others.  They bide their time; they are all consideration and delicacy; they are never importunate or tiresome; if they fail, they accept the failure as though it were a piece of undeserved good fortune; they never have a grievance; they simply wipe up the spilt milk, and say no more about it; baffled at one point, they go quietly round the corner, and continue their quest.  They never for a moment really consider any one’s interests except their own; even their generous impulses are deliberately calculated for the sake of the artistic effect.  Such people make it hard to believe in disinterested virtue; yet they join with the meek in inheriting the earth, and their prosperity seems the sign of Divine approval.

But apart from the definite steps that the ordinary, moderately interesting, moderately successful man may take, in the direction of a cure for egotism, the best cure, after all, for all faults, is a humble desire to be different.  That is the most transforming power in the world; we may fail a thousand times, but as long as we are ashamed of our failure, as long as we do not helplessly acquiesce, as long as we do not try to comfort ourselves for it by a careful parade of our other virtues, we are in the pilgrim’s road.  It is a childish fault, after all.  I watched to-day a party of children at play.  One detestable little boy, the clumsiest and most incapable of the party, spent the whole time in climbing up a step and jumping from it, while he entreated all the others to see how far he could project himself.  There was not a child there who could not have jumped twice as far, but they were angelically patient and sympathetic with the odious little wretch.  It seemed to me a sad, small parable of what we so many of us are engaged all our lives long in doing.  The child had no eyes for and no thoughts of the rest; he simply reiterated his ridiculous performance, and claimed admiration.  There came into my mind that exquisite and beautiful ode, the work too, strange to say, of a transcendent egotist, Coventry Patmore, and the prayer he made: