The latter theory, however, is that which is popular to-day. Dreamers are constantly devising schemes by which the idle and incompetent may live off the proceeds of the diligent; labor unions deprive their members of the liberty of speech and the liberty of work; socialism would reduce all to a common level; syndicates and trusts break down individual enterprise; sectarian colleges limit their calls to professors who will echo their tenets; and thus in all directions the free growth of the individual is hemmed in by the hedges of prejudice, tradition, creed, and false theory.
Many people scarcely know what Individuality is. They think it means to wear a straw hat in winter, or in some other way to make oneself conspicuous. This is precisely what it does not mean. The man who is himself is always simple and natural; he buys his hat at the hatter’s and allows
the tailor to make his clothes. To act otherwise is affectation and singularity, not individuality. Simplicity is a charming characteristic of the strongest minds. It is recorded of Sir Isaac Newton that he was not distinguished from other men by any peculiarity, either natural or affected; upon which Dr. Johnson makes the excellent remark,—“Newton stood alone merely because he had left the rest of mankind behind him, not because he deviated from the beaten path.” Those who met Robert Browning for the first time were agreeably surprised to find the great poet was in ordinary society simply a gentleman. All forms of affectation are confessions that we are not what we pretend to be, and are inconsistent with true individuality.
Nor is it obstinacy and self-assertiveness, as others suppose. The man who aims to be himself will wish others to remain themselves, and will be the last to obtrude his personality in a disagreeable way upon them. Obedience, voluntary subjection to the will of others, is part of his self-training. He who cannot obey, cannot command. Nor is he one who lives for himself, is solitary or selfish. The characters who in history shine with the most marked individuality have been those who moved most actively among their fellow men.
True individuality is that confidence in self which arises from a knowledge of one’s own powers, their extent and their limitations. This knowledge can be obtained only by experience, by testing the powers, and by gauging their strength in the contest of life.
From how many vexations does a correct estimate of our capacities free us? Envy, disappointed ambition, premature exhaustion, disgust of the world, these arise from inadequate notions of our own abilities. On the other hand, that life has always a large share of happiness which is spent in the prosecution of some object to which our faculties are equal, and which therefore we prosecute with success.
In judging of our own powers we are just as likely to under- as to over-estimate them, and the results are equally painful.
How acute are the sufferings of a diffident, shy, self-distrustful, over-sensitive disposition! Such a temperament is a sad make-weight in the struggle of life. More men fail through ignorance of their strength than through knowledge of their weakness. They are like a farmer, who gathers scanty harvests all his life from fields covering rich deposits of ore, which, did he but work them, would enrich him. The fear of falling often hinders from climbing.
Let such remember that few score success, but after failures. Few experiences are indeed more painful than to devote ourselves earnestly to an undertaking and discover that it is beyond our powers; but the failure teaches us the extent of our strength and increases it for the next effort. We can never learn our own abilities but by trying for what is beyond them; like the athlete, who lifts heavier and heavier weights until he reaches those which he cannot
move. Practice and persistence are strong cards. “Time and I,” said Philip II, “against any other two.”