Page:About people (IA aboutpeople00well).pdf/179

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Who's Who?

No question has more servile terror or ostracizing power than this inquiry. However desirable it may be before an intimacy is formed, or copartnership in work undertaken, it has become imperative ere a nod of recognition is bestowed. Even if sudden philanthropy dictate the saving of a life, the hero and the spectators must know who has been saved. Cordiality changes its universal blandness into warmth when ancestors are well known. Not genealogical zeal or elderly kindness alone ask: Where does he belong? but fear of compromise raises the same query, and accompanies it with full notes. If we are to be known by our friends,

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