We English people make such a secret of our feelings, are so
stubbornly reticent about the wrong things, have so false and
stupid a sense of decorum, that I am infinitely grateful for this
glimpse of a pure, patient, and devoted heart. It seems to me that
the one thing worth knowing in this world is what other people
think and feel about the great experiences of life. The writers who
have helped the world most are those who have gone deepest into the
heart; but the dullest part of our conventionality is that when a
man disguises the secrets of his soul in a play, a novel, a lyric,
he is supposed to have helped us and ministered to our deepest
needs; but if he speaks directly, in his own voice and person, of
these things, he is at once accused of egotism and indecorum. It is
not that we dislike sentiment and feeling; we value it as much as
any nation; but we think that it must be spoken of symbolically and
indirectly. We do not consider a man egotistical, if he will only
give himself a feigned name, and write of his experiences in the
third person. But if he uses the personal pronoun, he is thought to
be shameless. There are even people who consider it more decent to
say "one feels and one thinks," than to say "I feel and I think.
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