Page:About people (IA aboutpeople00well).pdf/105

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LOYALTY AND LIBERALITY.
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loyalty, cluster action, organization; the thought crystallizing into creed and deed. Unquestioning enthusiasms and friendships develop loyalty at an early age, when its declarations are apt to be those of unreasoning prejudice rather than of calm, intense conviction based on thought and experience. It cannot exist in its nobler, permanent aspects until it has fortified itself by liberality.

Liberality must always be born of knowledge, for though, like Loyalty, it may spring largely from sentiment or kindliness, it would fail in many of life's emergencies unless it also possessed wisdom. It is the power to look at events, persons, and thoughts from another stand-point than our own, which requires sympathy, created by insight and comprehension. But we fancy that at times special occasions justify us in terming another's ideas absurd; because we are sure we know, and that the possession of such knowledge should necessitate moral obligation in action; thus including

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