w thyself part of the Eternal Source;
Naught can stand before thy spirit's force;
The soul's Divine Inheritance is best."

Again there are many who are living far below their possibilities
because they are continually handing over their individualities to
others. Do you want to be a power in the world? Then be yourself.
Don't class yourself, don't allow yourself to be classed among the
second-hand, among the _they-say_ people. Be true to the highest
within your own soul, and then allow yourself to be governed by no
customs or conventionalities or arbitrary man-made rules that are not
founded upon _principle_. Those things that are founded upon principle
will be observed by the right-minded, the right-hearted man or woman,
in any case.

Don't surrender your individuality, which is your greatest agent of
power, to the customs and conventionalities that have gotten their life
from the great mass of those who haven't enough force to preserve their
individualities,--those who in other words have given them over as
ingredients to the "mush of concession" which one of our greatest
writers has said characterizes our modern society. If you do surrender
your individuality in this way, you simply aid in increasing the
undesirable conditions; in payment for this you become a slave, and the
chances are that in time you will be unable to hold even the respect of
those whom you in this way try to please.

If you preserve your individuality then you become a master, and if
wise and discreet, your influence and power will be an aid in bringing
about a higher, a better, and a more healthy set of conditions in the
world. All people, moreover, will think more of you, will honor you
more highly for doing this than if you show your weakness by
contributing yourself to the same "mush of concession" that so many of
them are contributing themselves to. With all classes of people you
will then have an influence. "A great style of hero draws equally all
classes, all extremes of society to him, till we say the very dogs
believe in him."

To be one's self is the only worthy, and by all means the only
satisfactory, thing to be. "May it not be good policy," says one, "to
be governed sometimes by one's surroundings?" What is good policy? To
be yourself, first, last, and always.

"This above all,--to thine own self be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."

"When we appe