This condition of solitude, at once deplored and self-imposed, has the still more serious disadvantage of leaving the mind, for lack of proper control, to the domination of the most false and exaggerated ideas.
It is a well-known fact that any force of exaggeration, however obvious, becomes less noticeable to us in proportion as it becomes more familiar.
It exists, in the last analysis, only by its comparative relation to other things.
It is certain that a child ten years old would seem very large if he were five feet high, whereas a man of that stature is considered a dwarf.
Among Oriental races a woman is generally classed as a blonde whose hair is not absolutely black.
Things only take their real appearance from a comparison with others of the same kind.
For all his science, an ethnologist, placed in front of a man of an unknown tribe, would be unable to say whether this man's stature were normal or below the average in relation to others of his race, since no information would be forthcoming as to this people's height or characteristics. It is, therefore, no matter for surprize that the timid man, shut in upon himself and having no other horizon than the limited field of his own observations, is disposed to picture them in colors whose truth he can not verify, since the terms of comparison, vital to the accomplishment of his end, are not available to him.
It is, therefore, impossible for such a man not to become accustomed to the idea as it presents itself to him, to such an extent that he is quite unconscious of its successive changes in character.
Do we notice the growth of a child who is constantly with us until he reaches man's estate?
Can we measure the development of a blossom into the perfect flower?