Page:About people (IA aboutpeople00well).pdf/45

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INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME.
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friends; when curved, we gain our Philip Sidney, our Abraham Lincoln, our wise philanthropists, our calm enthusiasts, our guides and inspirers. It is intensity of feeling that can either be hidden or must find utterance of itself, and thus, in either case, it becomes the national expression of characteristics. It cannot be easily defined, because it is the "make up," — the whole of each one; it is the atmosphere that surrounds his moral, mental, and bodily qualities. It is both a derived and educated force. Whether it shall be our blessing or our curse depends upon the amount of righteous will-power exercised. Without it we lack the beauty of distinctiveness and the force of action; yet the want of recognition of each other's individuality is the efficient cause of many a discordant home and confused social action.

Each generation, as it is born, lives, and passes away, talks of individuality as if it were the product of itself alone, — a wonder only then to be beheld; regarding it as a distinct fact in

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