SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 33 



no snch profound conviction of immense superior- 

 ity to the common herd of ordinary people. Your 

 nervous young man may reallj' liave brains, com- 

 mon-sense, fair talking powers, and agreeable 

 manners; but the moment he finds himself in the 

 society of his fellow-creatures he becomes a prey 

 at once to this hideous form of introspective anal- 

 ysis, this inability to divest himself for a moment 

 of his own abiding and obtrusive personality. Let 

 the talk turn on politics or literature, on art or on 

 gossip, he is not thinking of the presidential cam- 

 l)aign or the state legislature, of Mr. Gladstone or 

 the Redistribution Bill, of Tenn3'son's new poem 

 or Howells' new novel, of the fashionable picture 

 at the Academy or the remarkable sensation at 

 the Lyceum, of j\L-s. Smith's nice little dinner or 

 of what a bad match Ethel Jones is going to make 

 with that young fellow in the Hundred and Fifti- 

 eth ; all these subjects, which are being discussed 

 with so much animation and verve all around him, 

 fall absolutely flat upon his inattentive ear ; what 

 he is really thinking of is simply himself, and 

 whether other people are or are not tliinking about 

 him. If he ventures a critical remark as to the 

 conduct of the hero in the latest romance, or en. 

 deavors to defend Ethel Jones against the charge 

 of imprudence in marrying a young man without 

 a penny, he cares really in his own heart less than 

 nothing about either hero or young lady ; what he 



