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r Self within himself, and fascinating it by sympathy, will find that he has, within moral limits, a strange power of fascinating those who are in sympathy with him. Whereupon many will say "of course." Like and like together strike. Birds of a feather flock together. _Similis similibus_. But it often happens in this life, though they meet they do _not_ pair off. Very often indeed they meet, but to part. There must be, even where the affinity exists, consideration and forethought to test the affinity. It requires long practice even for keen eyes to recognize the amethyst or topaz, or many other gems, in their natural state as sea-worn pebbles. Now, it is not a matter of fancy, of romance, or imagination, that there are men and women who really have, deeply hidden in their souls, or more objectively manifested, peculiar or beautiful characteristics, or a spirit. I would not speak here merely of _naivete_ or tenderness--a natural affinity for poetry, art, or beauty, but the peculiar tone and manner of it, which is sympathetic to ours. For two people may love music, yet be widely removed from all agreement if one be a Wagnerian, and the other of an older school. Suffice it to say that such similarities of mind or mood, of intellect or emotion do exist, and when they are real, and not imaginary, or merely the result of passional attraction, they suggest and may well attract the use of Fascination. Those who actually develop within themselves such a spirit, regarding it as one, that is a self beyond self, attain to a power which few understand, which is practical, positive, and real, and not at all a superstitious fancy. It may begin in imagining or fancy, but as the veriest dream is material and may be repeated till we see it visibly and can then copy it, so can we create in ourselves a being, a segregation of our noblest thoughts, a superb abstraction of soul which looks from its sunny mountain height down on the dark and noisome valley which forms our worldly common intellect or mind, or the only one known to by far the majority of mankind, albeit they may have therein glimpses of light and truth. But it is to him who makes for himself, by earnest Will and Thought, a _separate_ and better Life or Self that a better life is given. Those who possess genius or peculiarly cultivated minds of a highly moral caste, gifted with pure integrity, and above vulgarity and worldly commonplace habits, should never form a tie in
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