to know. The man or woman who can talk _impersonally_ is
as rare as a psychic phenomenon when you want to see it but won't _pay
for_ a manifestation! Most people can talk of nothing but themselves
because nothing else really interests them. I don't mean to say that
they boast, but, what they talk about is purely their own personal
affair--ranging from golf to grandchildren. That is what makes dogs
the most sympathetic listeners in the world. Could they speak, I fear
me they would only tell us about their puppies, or of their new bone,
or of the rat they worried to death the last time they scampered
through the wood. Cats are far more egotistical, and consequently far
more human. They can't talk, it is true; neither can they listen. By
their manner we know exactly what interests them at the moment, and if
they appear to sympathise with us, it is only because what we want at
the moment fits in admirably with their own desires. And so many
people are just like cats in this. They invite us to their houses,
presumably because they desire our company, but, in reality, in order
that they may relate to us at length the incidents, big or small, which
have marked the calendar of their recent very everyday existence.

But we, on our side, are not without our means of revenge. We invite
them back again, under protestations of friendship, and, when we have
got them, and, as it were, chained them down with the fetters of
politeness, we relate to them in our turn everything which has happened
to us and ours. We never ask ourselves if our children, or our cook,
or our new hat, or our next summer holiday can interest anybody outside
the radius of their influence. We demand another human being to smile
when we smile, show anger when we show anger, echo our own admiration
for our new hat, and generally retrace with us our life in retrospect
and journey with us into the problematical future. For, as I said
before, the wisdom which realises that the incidents of our own life
need not--very probably do not, although they may be too polite to show
it--interest other people, is the rarest wisdom of all. Most people
will never, never learn it. And the more people love their own
affairs, the more they seek the world for listeners whom, as it were,
they may devour. They usually have hundreds of intimates, and boast at
Christmas of having sent off a thousand cards! As a matter of fact,
they very probably have not one real friend.