A STAGE PLAY.
Most men, whatever their occupation may be, are accustomed to study man exclusively from their own point of view. A man who passes his life behind a tavern bar is apt to divide the human race into those who habitually refresh themselves in public-houses, and those who do not. A policeman classes society under two great heads—prosecutors and prisoners. In a footman's eyes, his fellow-men are either visitors or servants; in an author's, they are publishers or reviewers. Now, it is conceivable that a man may be at once a prosecutor, a visitor, and a publisher; but a policeman will take no heed of him in the two latter capacities; a footman will care nothing that he is a prosecutor and a publisher; and an author will in no way be concerned that he is a prosecutor (unless, indeed, he is prosecuting the author), or that he is a visitor, unless the visit be paid in his capacity of publisher. Each man allows his immediate surroundings to interfere between himself and the world at large. He sees mankind, not through a distorted medium, but through a medium so circumscribed, that it permits only one feature of the object looked at to be seen at one time. In short, he examines mankind, not through a field-glass, but through a microscope.
