Profile

“ What appeals to us most about these individuals is, not mere biographical facts such as appear in Who's Who, but the more intimate details of character and personality that give us the key to their success. ”

“ I INTRODUCTORY The object of a full-dress biography is to present as complete a picture as may be of a man and his work, the influence of his character upon his achievement, the struggle with opposing influences to carry out some guiding purpose or great idea. With abundant documents at hand the individual development, the action of events upon character, and of character upon events, can be shown in the spontaneous freedom of letters, as well as in considered publications. ”

“ THE INDIVIDUAL AS A WHOLE, INTEGRATED OR PARTIALLY DISSOCIATED
People differ not only in intelligence and efficiency, but in an intangible something referred to as "personality". If your acquaintance is applying for a certain position, and has named you as one of his references, you will be asked by the appointing officer to tell what you know of the candidate's experience, his knowledge and skill in the field where he desires a position, his character and habits, and his personality ”

“ By comparing the histories of personalities as determined by social influences and expressed in various schemes of life we can establish a measure of the given influences. The varieties of human experience will be innumerable in their concrete details, but by the multiplication and analysis of life records we may expect to determine typical lines of the genesis of character as related to types of influence. ”

“ After all, the great end of biography is not to be found, as some would seem to imagine, in a series of dates, or in a collection of gossiping anecdotes and table-talk, which, instead of lighting up and vivifying the features, hang as a cloud of dust upon the portrait; but it is to be found in an analysis of human genius, and in the developement of those elements of the mind, to whose varied combinations, and nicely adjusted proportions, the mental habits, and intellectual peculiarities of distinguished men may be readily referred. ”

“ Many biographers, such is the fashion now, begin their works with a long account not only of father and mother, but of grandparents and of ever so many ancestors, in order to show how these determined the outward and inward character of the man whose life has to be written. Who would deny that there is some truth, or at least some plausibility, in atavism, though no one has as yet succeeded in giving an intelligible account of it? ”

“ The group becomes, then, an integral part of the 1,500 word narrative which is given to the reader.
Characterization. The girl, whose name is not even mentioned, is the most potent character—or, perhaps, love as expressed through her makes her, symbolically, dominant. The engineer is the most important, by virtue of his active rôle; the workmen are the background characters, as they come under the influence of the simple demonstration of affection; they are the foreground characters, as the story is presented. What traits are manifest in various individuals of the group? ”

“ But to speak more closely of the matter in hand, let me name some of the considerations which must enter into the choice of a life-work. I can only speak in the most general way, addressing as I do young men of varying abilities and temperaments. If one should discuss the value or attractiveness of any particular vocation, the personal element and the question of individual fitness would instantly come in. ”

“ In that brief, sharp schooling I got personally and familiarly acquainted with all the different types of human nature that are to be found in fiction, biography, or history. When I find a well-drawn character in fiction or biography, I generally take a warm personal interest in him, for the reason that I have, known him before—met him on the river. ”

“ Suppose your prospect looks up from his work when you enter his presence, and you approach close to his desk; if you are immaculate in dress and body, you will appeal agreeably to his olfactory sense. The law of the association of ideas will then begin to work in your favor. Your prospect will get subconsciously a conscious impression of your clean character. ”

“ Busy men, moreover, are given to detail, and detail fills the eye and ear; men of reflection deal more with principles, and these lie beyond the range of ordinary vision.
The proposition which I here put forward, based on many years of observation and study, is fundamental, and affects, more or less, a wide range of character in every individual. ”

“ These four types of character represent the application of the law in persons of relatively the same grade of social position, and surrounded by the same general conditions of life. Between these extreme types of temperamental development, we may find every grade and blending of temperament, but the law remains the same. It requires the trained skill of the professional examiner to determine for each individual the exact type necessary for the complementary character, but this being done, and the description being given correctly, the application of the law becomes an easy task. ”

“ In our study and research we have learned to associate many fine gradations of differences in proportion with their corresponding differences in mental aptitudes and character.
EXPRESSION
Everything about a man indicates his character. Color, form, size, structure, texture, consistency, and proportion indicate almost entirely the man's inherent qualities. It is important for us to determine, however, in sizing up men, what they have done with their natural qualifications. ”

“ Well, I don't want to obstruct business, of course, but suppose, for instance, I get myself identified by a man I know and a man you know, and a man who can leave his business and come here for the delirious joy of identifying me, and you admit that I am the man I claim to be, corresponding as to description, age, sex, etc., with the man I advertise myself to be, how would it be about your ability to identify yourself as the man you claim to be? ”

“ Even the commonest terms of description, such as keen gray eyes, square chin, rugged countenance, are interpreted as showing character, and depart to some degree from pure description. Often the sole purpose of description is to show character, and only those details are introduced which accomplish this purpose.
In life we judge a man's character by his actions, and so in the character sketch we are led to infer his character from what he does. The character indicated by his appearance is corroborated by a statement of his actions and especially by showing how he acts. ”

“ In all these instances, where there are no circumstances that constitute a character, and familiarize to us the person spoken of, we naturally enquire who he is, and for want of farther information become indifferent as to what is recorded of him. ”

“ So when we pass from country to character, from character to opportunity, and from opportunity to suggestion, we pass from subjects with which it is comparatively easy to become familiar to subjects which need life-long and careful study. ”

“ No training, no bluffing, no tricks, will take the place of genuine sterling character; your prospect’s instinct, if he is a sharp student of human nature,—and most business men are,—will very quickly tell him whether you are shamming an interest in him or whether it is genuine. ”

“ You desire that I shall present you the man combining the elements of character in their proper proportions, qualifying him for life in its different departments. Such a man I would state to be one who is prepared to take his place in the domestic circle; who can act his part in the various departments of professional life; and who is educated for the honor and service of his God. ”

“ The greater the number of types of character exhibited to the public, and the greater the facility of comparison between them, the more sharply defined, and the more clearly recognized, will the best one be. ”

“ They have, in pursuance of their Theory, mapped out the human scull into compartments, to each of which they have assigned a particular faculty or sentiment, and they profess to tell, with some degree of accuracy, the individual character by the peculiar formation of the head. ”

“ We may therefore define character as an expression of the organization of the wishes resulting from temperament and experience, understanding by “organization” the general pattern which the wishes as a whole tend to assume among themselves. ”

“ He will be guided in his selection partly by what he esteems the preponderating weight of evidence, and partly, and perhaps still more, by the superior fitness of any one phase of the character for the purpose he has in view, or the development of his own peculiar powers. ”

“ A man’s character is seen in small matters; and from even so slight a test as the mode in which a man wields a hammer, his energy may in some measure be inferred. Thus an eminent Frenchman hit off in a single phrase the characteristic quality of the inhabitants of a particular district, in which a friend of his proposed to settle and buy land. ”

“ I am tired of the novelist's portrait of a gentleman, with gloves and hat, leaning against a pillar, upon a vague landscape background. I want the gentleman as he appears in a snap-shot photograph, with his every-day expression on his face, and the localities in which he spends his days accurately visible around him. ”

“ Besides the arrangements which nation and profession make of mankind, there are certain natural classes formed from the diversities of personal character. Although the varieties of temper and disposition in men are infinite, so that no two persons probably ever existed in whom [Pg 14] there was an exact conformity, yet there are certain leading features of character which produce a general resemblance among numerous individuals. ”

“ All this seems to suggest to us that our conception of personality must be considerably altered from its ordinary form, and rendered more fluent, in order to tally with the real facts. There is no such thing as a fixed and limited personality, of definite content and character, which we can credit to our account, or to the account of our friends. ”

“ CHAPTER X. PERSONATION. Personation is the representation, by a single reader or speaker, of the words, manners, and actions of one or several persons. The change of voice in personation in public reading is of great importance, but is generally overlooked, or but little practiced.
The student must practice assiduously upon such pieces as require Personation in connection with narrative and descriptive sentences, and he must use the Time, Pitch, Force, and Gesture, which are appropriate to the expression of the required thought. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But what we must chiefly insist upon in the investigation we are Now undertaking is, that the life of each is manifested by a special physiognomy deeply imprinted in their whole history, which we here call character. ”

“ If from the cradle through life the outside world brands a class as unfit for this or that work, the character of the class will come to resemble and conform to the character described. To find valuable qualities in our fellows, such qualities must be presumed and expected. ”

“ Each of these professions has long borne in our literature, and in common opinion, a character so clearly appreciable by the public generally, that, when truthfully reproduced in some new work of fiction, or exemplified by some transaction in real life, it is at once recognised as marked by the genuine class-traits and peculiarities. ”

“ It is certainly in proportion as a biography is human or individual that it can have any lasting interest. Also, “Those relations are commonly of the most value in which the writer tells his own story.” ”

“ The true conception of biography, therefore, as the faithful portrait of a soul in its adventures through life, is very modern. We may question whether it existed, save in rare and accidental instances, until the 17th century. The personage described was, in earlier times, treated either from the philosophical or from the historical point of view. ”

“ Our stories are contained in these dry-point-like portraits stript of all that was occasional, accidental, ephemeral, leaving alone the essential facts, such as, for instance, that we were, say, a civil engineer. I think it would be well for each of us occasionally to visualise his obituary "note." This should have the effect of clarifying our outlook. Amid the welter of existence what is it that we are above all to do? To thine own self be true. You are a husband, a father, and a civil engineer. ”

“ Such a career, the record of which may be clearly traced not only in public history but in a vast mass of preparatory notes and memoranda of every description, illustrates in a very noble way the importance of that constant and general preparation which ought to include special preparation as a landscape includes the individual field. ”

“ When that stage has been reached not merely the greater part, but the whole, of our knowledge will be impressed with one character—the character, namely, of positivity or scientificalness; and all our conceptions in every part of knowledge will be thoroughly homogeneous. ”

“ In your choice of a vocation you should make up your mind once for all that, on account of the qualities I have described, you are not commercial or financial, and, therefore, you do not belong in the industrial or commercial world. Your talents are educational, dramatic, professional, literary. You are decidedly of the mental type. Your world is a mental world, an intellectual world. Ideas, ideals, and theories are the things with which you can deal most successfully. ”