own
thoughts as an engineer can on the sequence of movements in his steam
engine--if we could dig, and penetrate into the depths of our own
being, as a miner penetrates into a seam of coal--we might then
cultivate with some profit our own special lines of thought, our own
gifts, that portion of individuality, which we each possess. But it is
so difficult to get to know it--we are always on the surface of
ourselves. What power will unearth our self and make us really know
what we are and what we can do? It is because we do not know
ourselves, that we fail so hopelessly to give the things which are of
incalculably real worth to the world, such as fresh individuality, and
reality of character. Among millions of beings how few exist who
possess strong original minds! We are _not_ individual for the most
part, and we are _not_ real. Our lives _are_ buried lives; we are
unconscious absorbers, and reproducers, under other words of that
which we have imbibed elsewhere. We need not only fresh expressions of
old statements, but actually new ideas, and new conceptions. (The
fresh _subjects_ people talk about, are really fresh _conceptions_ of
subjects.) We shall never get this bloom of freshness, and this sense
of reality and individuality of view unless we cultivate their
soil--to have fresh ideas, we must encourage the right atmosphere in
which alone they can live. We must not let our own personality,
however slight, be suppressed, or be discouraged, or interfered with
by a more powerful, or a more excellent personality.

Individuality is so weak and pliable a thing in most of us that it is
very easily checked--it requires watchfulness and care, and not to be
overborne, for the smallest individual thought of a mind of any
originality, is more worth to the world than any re-expression of the
thought of some other mind, however great.

Even the "best hundred books" may have a disastrous effect upon us.
They may kill some aspirations, if they kindle others. Persons of
mature age may surely at some time have made the discovery that much
has been lost through the dominating influence of a superior mind.
Many persons, for instance, have felt the great influence of Carlyle,
and Ruskin, in their youth. Carlyle could do incalculable good to some
minds by his ethics of work, but irremediable harm to others; minds
have actually become stunted and sterile through that part of his
teaching, which was unsuited to them. Carlyle's temperamen