Says Arthur Helps on this point, "If it
were not for some singular people who persist in thinking for
themselves, in seeing for themselves, and in being comfortable, we
should all collapse into a hideous uniformity.... In all things, a man
must beware of so conforming himself as to crush his nature, and forego
the purpose of his being." And Emerson might have added to that thought,
"Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo."
Conformity enjoins compromise. Fewer would be the great national
calamities of war, famine, hard times; fewer the domestic trials; fewer
the broken hearts, were there more of compromise in the world,--were
there less cultivation and indulgence of certain national or personal
peculiarities.
Girls ought never to be so familiar with one another as to forget to
be polite in their intercourse. Courtesy, the last best gift of
chivalry, the one bright star of the Middle Ages, leads out a long array
of thoughts; but we cannot stop to marshal them here. Politeness is
never superfluous. It needs to become so much a part of the costume of
character as never to be laid aside except for renewal. Surely we should
show its brightest ornaments, and the durability of its fabric, to
our friends and acquaintances.
Let us seek friends, not wait for them to come to us. Let us search
for them, not with boldness and indiscrimination, but with a hearty
good-will to help them and enjoy them, as we, in return, expect them
to do us good, and be glad of us.
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