I had not intended to carry on any further a history which is chiefly about myself; but events are always occurring which change one’s mind from day to day, and alter one’s most fixed resolutions. I do not pretend to understand people who make unchangeable decisions, and certainly I am not one of them. Besides, common fairness requires that I should allow Mrs Peveril to have the same privilege as myself, and tell things her own way. I could not have imagined, had I not seen it, the difference there was between the aspect of things to her and to me. I suppose it is true after all that everybody has his or her own point of view, which is different from all others. Of course we realise this fact quite clearly in a great poem like “The Ring and the Book;” but to recognise it in one’s own small affairs has somehow a much stranger, more surprising effect. What an odd difference it would make in the world if we could all see ourselves now and then with other people’s eyes! I confess that the girl in her story, who was Mr Peveril’s daughter, is very much unlike the girl in mine--and yet the same somehow, as may be traced out with a little trouble. This is humbling, but it is for one’s good, I suppose. When you look at yourself in a mirror, you have so much interest in yourself that your defects don’t strike you--you can’t help being the first figure--the most important; but to feel that all along you are not important at all--anything but the first figure, a mere shadow, scarcely noticed! it has a very odd effect--sometimes laughable, sometimes rather the reverse; but this was what now happened to me.