. In our ordinary
lives, surrounded by our ordinary circumstances, we cannot be truly
ourselves; each of us is but part of a whole, and very often an entirely
unharmonious part. It is very seldom that we are able to do the things we
wish to do in the manner and at times and places when it would best suit
our natures. Try as we may to be true to ourselves, it is seldom possible;
we are swept away in a current of conventionality. It may be one kind of
conventionality for some of us and another kind for others, but we are
borne on by it all the same. Sometimes a person like myself or Mr.
Archibald clings to some rock or point upon the bank, and for a little
while is free from the coercion of circumstances, but this cannot be for
long, and we are soon swept with the rest into the ocean of conglomerate
commonplace."

"That's when we die!" remarked Mrs. Perkenpine, who sat reverently
listening.

"No," said the speaker, "it happens while we are alive. But now," she
continued, "we have a chance, as I said before, to shake ourselves free
from our enthralment. For a little while each one of us may assert his or
her individuality. We are a varied and representative party; we come from
different walks of life; we are men, women, and--" looking at Margery, she
was about to say children, but she changed her expression to "young
people." "I think you will all understand what I mean. When we are at our
homes we do things because other people want us to do them, and not
because we want to do them. A family sits down to a meal, and some of them
like what is on the table, some do not; some of them would have preferred
to eat an hour before, some of them would prefer to eat an hour later; but
they all take their meals at the same time and eat the same things because
it is the custom to do so.

"I mention a meal simply as an instance, but the slavery of custom extends
into every branch of our lives. We get up, we go to bed, we read, we work,
we play, just as other people do these things, and not as we ourselves
would do them if we planned our own lives. Now we have a chance, all of
us, to be ourselves! Each of us may say, 'I am myself, one!' Think of
that, my friends, each one! Each of us a unit, responsible only to his or
her unity, if I may so express it."

"Do you mean that I am that?" inquired Mrs. Perkenpine.

"Oh yes," replied Corona.

"Is Phil Matlack one?"

"Yes."

"All right," said the female guide; "if he is one, I don't