a nasty and disgusting connection with bacon. But people would not have it—eggs they wanted, and eggs they would have, how beautiful soever the pebbles might be. So with Haydon. He persisted that the people ought to have what they did not want, and he went from a prison to a lunatic asylum, and died a suicide.—George Dawson.
(1585)
INDIVIDUALITY
Rembrandt paints all in a shadow, and
Claude Lorraine in sunny light. Petrarch
frames with cunning skill his chiming sonnets,
and Dante portrays with majestic hand,
that makes the page almost tingle with fire,
his vision of the future. Shakespeare, with a
well-nigh prescient intelligence, interprets the
secrets of history and of life, and reads the
courses of the future in the past, and Milton
rolls, from beneath the great arches of his
religious and cathedral-like soul, its sublime
oratorios. And the copiousness of experience,
the variety, affluence, multiformity of
life, as it exists upon earth and arrests our
attention, is derived altogether, in the ultimate
analysis, from this personal constitution
of each individual.—Richard S. Storrs.
(1586)
Jesus said of the Good Shepherd, "He calleth his own sheep by name." We have each his own personal marks, and are never lost in the mass of humanity.
An inspector of police and, in general,
every person unfamiliar with the application
of the "verbal portrait," tho possessing
the photograph of an individual, will pass
by that individual without recognition, if
the photograph is a few years old or if the
general appearance has been altered by a
gain or loss of flesh, or by a change in the
beard or the hair or even the clothes. On
the other hand, descriptive identification,
which means an accurate description of the
immovable parts of the face (forehead, nose,
ears, etc.), enables those who are sufficiently
familiar with the method to identify a person
with certainty, not only with the aid of
a photograph, but also simply by means of
a printed description of those characteristics
of the person in question which are out of
the ordinary. (Text.)—L. Ramakers, The Scientific American.
(1587)
No rainbow that paints its arch upon the cloud, no river that courses like liquid silver through emerald banks, no sunset that opens its deeps of splendor, with domes of sapphire and pinnacles of chrysolite, hath any such beauty to him who surveys it as the poem or discourse which speaks the peace, or the triumphing hope, of another human soul. For forever is it true that the life in each stands apart from the life in every other. It hath its center, tho not its cause, within itself; is full-orbed in each; commingled with that of no other being; as separate in each, and as purely individual, as if there were no other besides it in existence!—Richard S. Storrs.
(1588)
Students of social phenomena must allow for the personal equation. Men are certainly as individual as birds: Every bird sings his own song; no two sing exactly alike, . . . the song of every singer is unique. There are, of course, similarities in the songs of birds of the same species. . . . For lack of intimate acquaintance with the music of a particular bird, we think he sings just like the next one. Why! do all roosters have the same crow? No; any farmer knows better than this. . . . Every individual sings his own song.
(1589)
See Originality; Personal Element. INDIVIDUALITY IN INTERPRETATION On the question as to how far it is permissible for the actor's own personality to enter into his interpretation of Shakespearian characters, Mr. Herbert Beerbohm Tree said: "Certain it is that while the actor's self-suppression is among the most essential factors of success in his art, so also his own individuality, his own personality—in a word, his humanity—are all-important. I mean, you can not imagine a characterless person playing the great characters of Shakespeare. You say: 'Oh, it doesn't matter! Shakespeare has taken care of all that!' 'Yes,' I reply, 'but it requires individuality to interpret individuality—power, force, character, to realize the creations of the master brain.' Nothing else than individuality will make the humanity of these characters stand out sharp and clear from the mass of humanities grouped behind it." (Text.)—The Fortnightly Review.
(1590)
Individuality in Nature—See Animism.
