Imagine a box in which there are a number of objects like
puff-balls, each with a certain life of its own, half-filling the
box. Some of the puff-balls are small, hard, sterile; others are
soft and expansive; some grow quickly in warmth and light, others
fare better in cold and darkness. The process of growth begins:
some of them increase in size and press themselves into every
crevice, enclosing and enfolding the others; even so the growth of
the whole mass is conditioned by the size of the box, and when the
box is full, the power of increase is at an end.
The box, to interpret the fable, is our character with its
possibilities. The conditions which develop the various qualities
are the conditions of our lives, our health, our income, our
education, the people who surround us; but even the qualities
themselves have their limitations. Two people may grow up under
almost precisely similar influences, and yet remain different to
the end; two characters may be placed in difficult and bracing
circumstances; the effect upon one character is to train the
quality of self-reliance, on the other to produce a moral collapse.
Some people do their growing early and then stop altogether,
becoming impervious to new opinions and new influences.
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