'When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself, and curse my fate,'—
He stopped, whereupon Larcher, not to be behind, and also without having recourse to the page, went on:
'Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possest, Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,'—
“But I think that hits all men,” said Larcher, interrupting himself. “Everybody has wished himself in somebody else's shoes, now and again, don't you believe?”
“I have certainly wished myself out of my own shoes,” replied Davenport, almost with vehemence. “I have hated myself and my failures, God knows! I have wished hard enough that I were not I. But I haven't wished I were any other person now existing. I wouldn't change selves with this particular man, or that particular man. It wouldn't be enough to throw off the burden of my memories, with their clogging effect upon my life and conduct, and take up the burden of some other man's—though I should be the gainer even by that, in a thousand cases I could name.”
“Oh, I don't exactly mean changing with somebody else,” said Larcher. “We all prefer to remain ourselves, with our own tastes, I suppose. But we often wish our lot was like somebody else's.”
Davenport shook his head. “I don't prefer to remain myself, any more than to be some man whom I know or have heard of. I am tired of myself; weary and sick of Murray Davenport. To be a new man, of my own imagining—that would be something;—to begin afresh, with an unencumbered personality of my own choosing; to awake some morning and find that I was not Murray Davenport nor any man now living that I know of, but a different self, formed according to ideals of my own. There would be a liberation!”
“Well,” said Larcher, “if a man can't change to another self, he can at least change his place and his way of life.”
“But the old self is always there, casting its shadow on the new place. And even change of scene and habits is next to impossible without money.”
“I must admit that New York, and my present way of life, are good enough for me just now,” said Larcher.