People differ widely, of course, in the consistency of their
characters, so widely that they may cover the whole gamut of
differences between a split soul like Dr. Jekyll's and an utterly
singleminded Brand, Parsifal, or Don Quixote. If the selves are too
unrelated, we distrust the man; if they are too inflexibly on one
track we find him arid, stubborn, or eccentric. In the repertory of
characters, meager for the isolated and the self-sufficient, highly
varied for the adaptable, there is a whole range of selves, from that
one at the top which we should wish God to see, to those at the bottom
that we ourselves do not dare to see. There may be octaves for the
family,--father, Jehovah, tyrant,--husband, proprietor, male,--lover,
lecher,--for the occupation,--employer, master, exploiter,--competitor,
intriguer, enemy,--subordinate, courtier, snob. Some never come out
into public view. Others are called out only by exceptional circumstances.
But the characters take their form from a man's conception of the
situation in which he finds himself. If the environment to which he
is sensitive happens to be the smart set, he will imitate the character
he conceives to be appropriate. That character will tend to act as
modulator of his bearing, his speech, his choice of subjects, his
preferences. Much of the comedy of life lies here, in the way people
imagine their characters for situations that are strange to them: the
professor among promoters, the deacon at a poker game, the
cockney in the country, the paste diamond among real diamonds.
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