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To pray is to flatter oneself that one will change entire nature with words.

‘There is no greater sin after the seven deadly,’ he says, ‘than to flatter oneself into the idea of being a great poet: the comfort is, such a crime 140 must bring its own penalty, and if one is a self-deluder indeed accounts must one day be balanced.’

Vain illusion to flatter oneself that one can ever cure an actress of the faults instilled in her from childhood!

Yet I can see no ground, except a desire to flatter oneself, for not crediting the élan vital with some such digestive intention.

Does one pick up in a secondhand bookshop a pamphlet giving a verbatim report of a trial in which a woman is the central figure, and does one flatter oneself that the find is unique, and therefore providing of fresh fields, it is almost inevitable that one will discover, or rediscover, that the case has already been put to bed by Mr Roughead in his inimitable manner.