Page:About people (IA aboutpeople00well).pdf/81

impersonal keeps it ever deepening, as not self, but others' good, is its universe. Over both preside conscientiousness, keen, quick, observant. It is the sensitive plate on which impressions are received; the index that points to hours and deeds; the chemical reagent that crystallizes actions into forms of beauty and usefulness; the spur to activity; the mirror of foolishness; the solvent of perplexities.

Character itself is formed as a gradual accretion, which is utilized into thought and action. It begins at the earliest stages of existence, and, whether we look back upon our own formation or guide the growth of children, we find distinct layers overlapping each other. Each is marked with the tender lines of grace and the bolder ones of duty, the law of moral necessity ruling that each shall perform its full part in the making of the perfect character. Some few men stand as peaks whose grandeur is so stern that one hardly