All persons chronically diseased are egotists, whether the disease be of the mind or of the body; whether it be sin, sorrow, or merely the more tolerable calamity of some endless pain, or mischeif among the cords of mortal life. Such individuals are made accutely conscious of self, by the torture in which it dwells. Self, therefore, grows to be so prominent an object with them that they cannot but present it to the face of every casual passer-by. ~ Hawthorne