We commence with the small nucleus of passion and experience, to widen the circle afterwards; and, perhaps, the most extensive and universal masters of life and character have begun by being egotists.

For there is in a man that has much in him a wonderfully acute and sensitive perception of his own existence.

An imaginative and susceptible person has, indeed, ten times as much life as a dull fellow, "an he be Hercules." He multiplies himself in a thousand objects, associates each with his own identity, lives in each, and almost looks upon the world with its infinite objects as a part of his individual being.

Afterwards, as he tames down, he withdraws his forces into the citadel, but he still has a knowledge of, and an interest in, the land they once covered.

He understands other people, for he has lived in other people--the dead and the living;--fancied himself now Brutus and now Caesar, and thought how _he_ should act in almost every imaginable circumstance of life.
Thus, when he begins to paint human characters, essentially different from his own, his knowledge comes to him almost intuitively.