Vanity, perhaps, plays some part in this hope,
for, "He that is pleased with himself easily imagines that he shall
please others."
Carlyle says, "A true delineation of the smallest man, and his scene of
pilgrimage through life, is capable of interesting the greatest man; that
all men are to an unspeakable degree brothers, each man's life a strange
emblem of every man's; and that human portraits, faithfully drawn, are of
all pictures the welcomest on human walls."
I am not sure that portraits of the artist by himself, though there are
notable and noble instances to the contrary, are often successful. We
rarely "see oursels as ithers see us," and are inclined to regard our
virtues and our vices with equal equanimity, and to paint ourselves in
too alluring colours; but I will do my best to tell my tale with strict
veracity, and with all the modesty I can muster.
An autobiographer, too, exposes himself to the charge of egotism, but I
must run the risk of that, endeavouring to avoid the scathing criticism
of him who wrote:--
"The egotist . . . . . . .
Whose I's and Me's are scattered in his talk,
Thick as the pebbles on a gravel walk.
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