First person

“ We parry and fend the approach of our fellow-man by compliments, by gossip, by amusements, by affairs. We cover up our thought from him under a hundred folds. I knew a man who under a certain religious frenzy cast off this drapery, and omitting all compliment and commonplace, spoke to the conscience of every person he encountered, and that with great insight and beauty. At first he was resisted, and all men agreed he was mad. ”

“ The first look is necessary to define the person of the individual one meets so as to avoid it in passing. Any unusual attraction detected in a first glance is a sufficient apology for a second, - not a prolonged and impertinent stare, but an appreciating homage of the eyes, such as a stranger may inoffensively yield to a passing image. ”

“ I confess I have often fancied myself transformed into some other person, and have felt a certain pleasure in seeing myself in my new character. One of our first amusements as children (if we have any imagination at all) is to get out of our own characters, and to try the characters of other personages as a change—to fairies, to be queens, to be anything, in short, but what we really are. ”

“ Yet, despite his carelessness of dress and of manner, and sometimes of the niceties of language, you gained a feeling that you were in the presence of a first-class man and a gentleman—of a first-class man, who through some crotchet of fate or some minor defect of character remained a first-class man in a tiny sphere and was more or less contented that it should be so. ”

“ Say at once that I throw my child at the head of the first-comer! We are among ourselves, we discuss him: he is this, he is that, not young, not handsome, not intelligent. We just talk the matter over, do we not? ”

“ Who of us, if he could keep afresh the feeling of awe and tenderness with which he looked on the face of his first-born infant, and felt what an undiscovered world was opened to him, who would ever need to learn his duty? What a work it is, how ceaseless, how growing at each step, how delicate in all its adaptations, how asking all our love, our thoughtfulness, our patience! ”

“ These are the countenances of the first-born,—the face of man in the morning of the world. No mark is on these lofty features, of sloth, or luxury, or meanness, and they surprise you with a moral admonition, as they speak of nothing around you, but remind you of the fragrant thoughts and the purest resolutions of your youth. ”

“ Day by day her beauty grew beneath my brush, startling me often with its spiritual force and significance till my mind grew feverish over its work, and I could scarcely refrain from rising at night to give a touch here or there to the floating golden hair or the piercing, tender eyes turned, ah, ever turned upon the inmost citadel of my heart with that look that slew my father before his time and made me, yes me, old in spirit even in the ardent years of my first manhood. ”

“ I believe that in some way now, at this, the crossroads, your twenty-first birthday, the eve of your formal engagement, there will come to you some sign—something which will cause you, wisely or unwisely, to choose what your life will be. ”

“ As I have now entered upon the second period of my youth, and put off the boy's toga to don that of adolescence, I must make my readers acquainted with the individuals who peopled the second circle of my life, as they have already become acquainted with those who peopled the first. ”

“ In a little while there are eyes full of interest and clutching hands full of purpose, smiles and frowns, the babbling beginning of expression and affections and aversions. Before the first year is out there is obedience and rebellion, choice and self-control, speech has commenced, and the struggle of the newcomer to stand on his feet in this world of men. ”

“ On your twenty-first birthday you will be a boy no longer. You will recognize yourself for a man. You will ask, ‘What is to be the aim, the occupation of my life?’ You will read this writing, and your question will be answered. ”

“ We will take, then, the second moment of consciousness—that at which the child regards its mother for the first time, full, apparently of reflection, and, certainly of attention and meaning, as it were with a wish to say something, if it had the power to talk. ”

“ And then see the effect upon the men themselves! At four-and-twenty a young fellow has achieved some wonderful success, and calls himself by some outlandish and conceited name—a double first, or something of the kind. ”

“ 'I had no first love,' he said at last; 'I began with the second.'
'How was that?'
'It's very simple. ”

“ The first appearance before our assembled disciples was formidable. There they were, in full array, every eye fixed in curious and significant inquiry. Most of them were entire strangers. We were known to be young, and would be considered, even by close observers, younger than we were. ”

“ When our young folk tell us that they have fallen in love at first sight, we know that they must have followed some principles of physiognomy and selection. However adventitiously these may have been acquired, they constitute the only guide obtainable. ”

“ Possibly one of the most useful things for young people to learn to do is to analyze character—first their own and then that of a prospective mate. It is hard to analyze character when it comes to the one who interests us with a view to marriage.
What is character? It is made up of three things. And they are all important. They are inheritance, environment and our personal reaction to situations that arise. Inheritance, environment, and personal reaction. ”

“ Don’t despond when you seem to fail in your first and most direct endeavour. In some quiet but thinking little boy or girl in that family circle, your words are greatly regarded. And just because that young mind sees, and seeing wonders, that father or mother is so little moved by what you say, it is the more impressed. ”

“ There we see him standing, an unknown youth, teeth clenched and face determined, fronting the world, and anticipating his own future in it, with something of that feeling which, call it what we may, and smile at it as any one may in the retrospect, has probably, by God’s own ordinance, filled every great and honest heart at the outset of a great career:—
Lay the vain impostors low! ”

“ If I had a good thing on you'd be the first man I should come and tell. I should say, 'West, old chap, you and me was pals long ago when we was young, and I ain't the one,' I should say, 'I ain't the one to turn me back on a chum.' That," remarked Mr. ”

“ I am just myself. ‘What is your name?’ ‘Man.’ ‘How old are you?’ I say, ‘I do not count my years and cannot count them, because I always was, I always shall be.’ ‘Who are your parents?’ ‘I have no parents except God and Mother Earth. ”

“ But it is noted only as a curious fact of natural history which has no bearing upon the college world. The real [Pg 234] question is, What kind of a fellow is the new man? Is he a good companion; has he the power of leadership; can he do anything particularly well; is he a vigorous and friendly person? ”

“ Heighten the effect of your newest creations by the joy of becoming first acquainted with them through you! Do not allow these, your latest offspring, some day to appear, perhaps, as foreigners in their place of birth, introduced, perhaps, by persons to whom you and your mind are strange! ”

“ That also! for, believe me, my dear, many men admire and love through other men's eyes. My son is one of the many. Nothing in this world would bring him to your side so quickly as to see you the center of attraction in the first circles of the capital. ”

“ On a first interview with them, especially, we receive an impression of clothes, good or otherwise, of beauty or plainness or ugliness of feature, and of correctness or uncouthness of manner. These are the common people, whether ladies and gentlemen, or simple men and women. There are, however, others, in all ranks and conditions, so instinct and replete with spirit, that we chiefly feel, when they have come in our way, that a spirit has passed by,—that a new life has been brought in contact with our own life.
Of these was Miss Dudley. ”

“ And we, embracing within our little selves (as did the tusk whence that ball was cut) countless conflicting forces, the inextricably intermingled traits, that is, of numberless ancestors,—fashioned, too, by the loving hands of father, mother, brother, sister, teacher; we spin forth on the journey of life. ”

“ But an hour afterwards the clay stands forth adorned with all the beauty of a lovely vase. Thus the soul begins, a mere mass of mind, but hands many and powerful soon shape it into the outlines of some noble man or woman. These sculptors of character include home, friendship, occupation, travel, success, love, grief and death.
Life's first teacher is the external world, with its laws. Man begins at zero. ”

“ In my service and European social experience I had come to look upon presentations as reserved for making known individuals of lesser rank to some personality particularly distinguished, whether for high achievement or royal birth, or possibly age and dignity, as in the case of grandparents of the house. ”

“ And as, in our first years, playing and learning, growth and education, had been quite common to both of us, so that we might well have been taken for twins, so did this community, this confidence, remain during the development of our physical and moral powers. ”

“ How would you like to become the father—and a mere glance around you will show you that the chances are enormously in favour of such a thing happening—of a boy with spectacles and protruding front teeth who asks questions all the time? ”

“ Now and again we have met the same, we have fancied, in the person of a younger sister, or a daughter, or perhaps of no kindred except that of sentiments and disposition, which always give a similar expression to the countenance. Sometimes, too, we have met the self-same being, changed, alas! ”

“ A great eagerness to open the door of life to the boy, who had been her pupil and whom she thought might possess a talent for the understanding of life, had possession of her. So strong was her passion that it became something physical. ”

“ The concept, 'dirty fellow,' which we have formed, becomes one under which we personally shrink from being classed; and so we 'wash up,' and set ourselves right, at moments when our social self-consciousness is awakened, in a manner toward which no strictly instinctive native prompting exists. ”

“ You may tell me in your genial way that I am only an upstart, but I answer that I occupy my position not because my father and my grandfather were big men, but because I myself, through my own plans and by my own strength, did certain things which in my judgment had to be done. ”

“ It might seem that many of those whose blood flows in our veins struggle for the mastery, and by and by one or more get the predominance, so that we grow to be like father, or mother, or remoter ancestor, or two or more are blended in us, not to the exclusion, however, it must be understood, of a special personality of our own, about which these others are grouped. ”

“ During this protracted period the old gentleman listened with the meekness and modesty of a child—as if he were adding new information to the stores of his own mind, or perhaps he was observing, with philosophic eye, the faculties of the youthful mind and how new energies are evolved by repeated action ”

“ Tales, at first told of ‘Somebody,’ get new names attached to them, and obtain a new local habitation, wherever they wander. ‘One of the leading personages to be met in the traditions of the world is really no more than—Somebody. ”

“ Experience has proven that in order to attract and hold the child's attention each conspicuous feature of history presented to him should have an individual for its center. The child identifies himself with the personage presented. ”

“ By reason of the homely and personal touches which he is qualified to give, the experiences and knowledge gained of an individuality by a constant and observant companion reveal, when related, far more convincingly than any official life based upon correspondence or posthumous compilation could do, the character, the humanity of the subject. ”

“ The birth of a human being, ideally considered, dates from the moment when the mother first saw or heard the voice of the father of her child. Biological and medical science, under the influence of Johannes Müller, Th. ”

“ The reserved and surly lad became a boy. "What a life," said he, "to search work all day, beg a shilling or so from my mother in the evening, meet my girl, tell her all that's happened, then at night to finish the day lying in bed trying to imagine what I'd do if I had a thousand a year! ”

“ They might well be recorded as the history of a great and noble character, as an example to the young men of our own day, and as possessing, from his family connections, more than ordinary value for every one. ”

“ Undoubtedly you ought to have taken your omnibus—any well-brought-up young woman would have done so; but having failed in this, you should then have had the insight to treat that young man as a human being—to have taken him home and introduced him to your parents, perhaps. ”

“ Many a word, many an event, has so, in the fullest sense, started a career, and set up a sort of paternity and authority over the soul. We are all "under influence," both of the natural and the supernatural kingdom. ”

“ The fulfilment of the last part of his high-set hope may perhaps have come, and now, at the distance of a hundred and twenty years, the figure of the marvellous boy stands out with a distinct personality which no 'animated bust' could give it. ”

“ Herein is hinted much of the philosophy of personality; and Professor Baldwin has written a solid book, mainly to show from the development of babies and little children that all other people are part of each of us, and each of us is part of all other people, and so there is really no separate personality, but we are all one spirit, if we did but know it. ”