And there is a necessary selfishness, rooted in each mortal breast.
The plans of prudence, or the whisperings of pride, or all-absorbing reveries of love,
Ambition, grief, or fear, or joy, set each man for himself;
Therefore, the centre of a circle, whereunto all the universe convergeth,
Is seen in fallen solitude, the naked selfish heart:
Stripped of conventional deceptions, untrammelled from the harness of society,
We all may read one little word engraved on all we do;
Other men, what are they unto us? the age, the mass, the million,—
We segregate, distinct from generalities, that isolated particle, a self:
It is the very law of our life, a law for soul and body,