Women in Love - Self Importance and the First Person Singular

 '...If you are of high importance to humanity you are of high importance to yourself.That is why you work so hard at the mines. If you can produce coal to cook five thousand dinners a day, you are five thousand times more important than if you cooked only your own dinner.'

'I suppose I am,' laughed Gerald.

'Can't you see,' said Birkin, 'that to help my neighbour to eat is no more than eating myself. "I eat, thou eatest, he eats, we eat, you eat, they eat"--and what then? Why should every man decline the whole verb. First person singular is enough for me.' - pp.44-45