Page:About people (IA aboutpeople00well).pdf/38
contentment with circumstances going hand in hand with acknowledgment of varying heights of mental stature, which humbly perceives that to-day's highest result may be to-morrow's future mediocrity. Contentment may have had to learn its lesson, temperament may have aided it, but once learned, the task has not been forgotten. Temperament is fraught with responsibility, not devoid of it; evil issues are to be shunned, beneficial ones to be deepened. The more of gifts we have, or the more of ease in acquiring them, the less depression weighs upon us; stronger will we possess, the more do we owe to others. Self-regeneration can never be effected by dependence on temperament as excuse. The healthy-mindedness of average people transforms the fancied force of temperament into the actual force of character. This feeling of responsibility recognizes that contentment is a personal attribute; that yet one can do little by himself; that the world de-