It is curious that our own offenses should seem somuch less heinous than the offenses of others. Isuppose the reason is that we know all thecircumstances that have occasioned them and so manageto excuse in ourselves what we cannot excuse inothers. We turn our attention away from our owndefects, and when we are forced by untoward eventsto consider them, find it easy to condone them. Forall I know we are right to do this; they are part ofus and we must accept the good and bad in ourselvestogether.
But when we come to judge others, it is not by ourselves as we really are that we judge them, butby an image that we have formed of ourselves fro which we have left out everything that offendsour vanity or would discredit us in the eyes of the world. To take a trivial instance: howscornful we are when we catch someone out telling a lie; but who can say that he has never toldnot one, but a hundred?
There is not much to choose between men. They are all a hotchpotch of greatness and littleness,of virtue and vice, of nobility and baseness. Some have more strength of character, or moreopportunity, and so in one direction or another give their instincts freer play, butpotentially they are the same. For my part, I do not think I am any better or any worse thanmost people, but I know that if I set down every action in my life and every thought that hascrossed my mind, the world would consider me a monster of depravity. The knowledge that thesereveries are common to all men should inspire one with tolerance to oneself as well as toothers. It is well also if they enable us to look upon our fellows, even the most eminent andrespectable, with humor, and if they lead us to take ourselves not too seriously.
