Various - The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 54, April, 1862

In the high sense, no man is great save he that is a large continent of this absolute humanity. The common nature of man it is; yet those are ever, and in the happiest sense, uncommon men, in whom it is liberally present.

But every man, besides the nature which constitutes him man, has, so to speak, another nature, which constitutes him a particular individual. He is not only like all others of his kind, but, at the same time, unlike all others. By physical and mental feature he is distinguished, insulated; he is endowed with a quality so purely in contrast with the common nature of man, that in virtue of it he can be singled out from hundreds of millions, from all the myriads of his race. So far, now, as one is representative of absolute humanity, he is a Person; so far as, by an element peculiar to himself, he is contrasted with absolute humanity, he is an Individual. And having duly chanted our Credo concerning man's pure and public nature, let us now inquire respecting this dividing element of Individuality,—which, with all the force it has, strives to cut off communication, to destroy unity, and to make of humanity a chaos or dust of biped atoms.

Not for a moment must we make this surface nature of equal estimation with the other. It is secondary, very secondary, to the pure substance of man. The Person first in order of importance; the Individual next,—

"Proximus huic, longo sed proximus intervallo,"—

"next with an exceeding wide remove."

Take from Epaminondas or Luther all that makes him man, and the rest will not be worth selling to the Jews. Individuality is an accompaniment, an accessory, a red line on the map, a fence about the field, a copyright on the book. It is like the particular flavors of fruits,—of no account but in relation to their saccharine, acid, and other staple elements. It must therefore keep its place, or become an impertinence. If it grow forward, officious, and begin to push in between the pure nature and its divine ends, at once it is a meddling Peter, for whom there is no due greeting but "Get thee behind me, Satan." If the fruit have a special flavor of such ambitious pungency that the sweets and acids cannot appear through it, be sure that to come at this fruit no young Wilhelm Meister will purloin keys. If one be so much an Individual that he wellnigh ceases to be a Man, we shall not admire him. It is the same in mental as in physical feature. Let there, by all means, be slight divergence from the common type; but by all means let it be no more than a slight divergence. Too much is monstrous: even a very slight excess is what we call ugliness . Gladly I perceive in my neighbor's face, voice, gait, manner, a certain charm of peculiarity; but if in any the peculiarity be so great as to suggest a doubt whether he be not some other creature than man, may he not be neighbor of mine!

A little of this surface nature suffices; yet that little cannot be spared. Its first office is to guard frontiers. We must not lie quite open to the inspection or invasion of others: yet, were there no medium of unlikeness interposed between one and another, privacy would be impossible, and one's own bosom would not be sacred to himself. But Nature has secured us against these profanations; and as we have locks to our doors, curtains to our windows, and, upon occasion, a passport system on our borders, so has she cast around each spirit this veil to guard it from intruding eyes, this barrier to keep away the feet of strangers. Homer represents the divinities as coming invisibly to admonish their favored heroes; but Nature was beforehand with the poet, and every one of us is, in like manner, a celestial nature walking concealed. Who sees you , when you walk the street? Who would walk the street, did be not feel himself fortressed in a privacy that no foreign eyes can enter? But for this, no cities would be built. Society, therefore, would be impossible, save for this element, which seems to hinder society. Each of us, wrapt in his opaque individuality, like Apollo or Athene in a blue mist, remains hidden, if he will; and therefore do men dare to come together.

But this superficial element, while securing privacy to the pure nature, also aids it to expression. It emphasizes the outlines of Personality by gentle contrast. It is like the shadow in the landscape, without which all the sunbeams of heaven could not reveal with precision a single object. Assured lovers resort to happy banter and light oppositions, to give themselves a sweeter sense of unity of heart. The child, with a cunning which only Nature has taught, will sometimes put a little honey of refusal into its kisses before giving them; the maiden adds to her virgin blooms the further attraction of virgin coyness and reserve; the civilizing dinner-table would lose all its dignity in losing its delays; and so everywhere, delicate denial, withholding reserve have an inverse force, and add a charm of emphasis to gift, assent, attraction, and sympathy. How is the word Immortality emphasized to our hearts by the perpetual spectacle of death! The joy and suggestion of it could, indeed, never visit us, had not this momentary loud denial been uttered in our ears. Such, therefore, as have learned to interpret these oppositions in Nature, hear in the jarring note of Death only a jubilant proclamation of life eternal; while all are thus taught the longing for immortality, though only by their fear of the contrary. And so is the pure universal nature of man affirmed by these provocations of contrast and insulation on the surface. We feel the personality far more, and far more sweetly, for its being thus divided from our own. From behind this veil the pure nature comes to us with a kind of surprise, as out of another heaven. The joy of truth and delight of beauty are born anew for us from each pair of chanting lips and beholding eyes; and each new soul that comes promises another gift of the universe. Whoever, in any time or under any sky, sees the worth and wonder of existence, sees it for me; whatever language he speak, whatever star he inhabit, we shall one day meet, and through the confession of his heart all my ancient possessions will become a new gain; he shall make for me a natal day of creation, showing the producing breath, as it goes forth from the lips of God, and spreads into the blue purity of sky, or rounds into the luminance of suns; the hills and their pines, the vales and their blooms, and heroic men and beauteous women, all that I have loved or reverenced, shall come again, appearing and trooping out of skies never visible before. Because of these dividing lines between souls, each new soul is to all the others a possible factor of heaven.

Such uses does individuality subserve. Yet it is capable of these ministries only as it does indeed minister . All its uses are lost with the loss of its humility and subordinance. It is the porter at the gate, furthering the access of lawful, and forbidding the intrusion of unlawful visitors to the mansion; who becomes worse than useless, if in surly excess of zeal he bar the gate against all, or if in the excess of self-importance he receive for himself what is meant for his master, and turn visitors aside into the porter's lodge. Beautiful is virgin reserve, and true it is that delicate half-denial reinforces attraction; yet the maiden who carries only No upon her tongue, and only refusal in her ways, shall never wake before dawn on the day of espousal, nor blush beneath her bridal veil, like Morning behind her clouds. This surface element, we must remember, is not income and resource, but an item of needful, and, so far as needful, graceful and economical expenditure. Excess of it is wasteful, by causing Life to pay for that which he does not need, by increase of social fiction, and by obstruction of social flow with the fructifications which this brings, not to be spared by any mortal. Nay, by extreme excess, it may so cut off and sequester a man, that no word or aspect of another soul can reach him; he shall see in mankind only himself, he shall hear in the voices of others only his own echoes. Many and many a man is there, so housed in his individuality, that it goes, like an impenetrable wall, over eye and ear; and even in the tramp of the centuries he can find hint of nothing save the sound of his own feet. It is a frequent tragedy,—but profound as frequent.