Emily Dickinson Lexicon

SELF'ISH-NESS, n.

The exclusive regard of a person to his own interest or happiness; or that supreme self-love or self-preference, which leads a person in his actions to direct his purposes to the advancement of his own interest, power or happiness, without regarding the interest of others. Selfishness, in its worst or unqualified sense, is the very essence of human depravity, and stands in direct opposition to benevolence, which is the essence of the divine character. As God is love, so man, in his natural state, is selfishness. Selfishness … a vice utterly at variance with the happiness of him who harbors it, and as such, condemned by self-love. – Mackintosh.