Egotism

All persons chronically diseased are egotists, whether the disease be of the mind or the body; whether it be sin, sorrow, or merely the more tolerable calamity of some endless pain, or mischief among the cords of mortal life.  Such individuals are made acutely conscious of self, by the torture in which it dwells.  Self, therefore, grows to be so prominent an object with them that they cannot but present it to the face of every casual passer-by.

Source: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Egotism; or, The Bosom-Serpent, 1843
Taken From: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948