Life, instead of being an accumulation of spiritual treasure, has been the squandering of its wealth, in a lapse of interest, as soon as it was earned. Even unbearable sorrow might have been the means, by a process of transmutation, of acquiring a deeper appreciation of life’s truer values. But the squanderer has lost his vision, because he did not retain on the background of memory his experience, against which to contrast his new reactions, and did not have the emotional image of old novelties to spur him to the apprehension and appreciation of new ones. More amazing even than the lack of a healthy interest in their own personalities is the lack of most people of an interest, beyond one of a trivial or professional nature, in others. Our literary artists have scarcely begun to touch the resources of human ways and acts. Writers surrender reality for the sake of a plot, and in attempting to make a point, or to write adventure, squeeze out the natural traits and nuances of character and the haphazardnesses of life that are the true adventure and point. We cannot know too much about each other. All our best education comes from what people tell us or what we observe them do. We cannot endure being totally separated from others, and it is well that we cannot. For it would mean that we should have then no life above the satisfaction of our crudest material wants. Our keenest delights are based upon some manifestation or other of social life. Even gossip arises not so much from malice as from a real social interest in our neighbors; the pity of it is, of course, that to so many people it is only the misfortunes and oddities that are interesting. Let our interests in the social world with which we come in contact be active and not passive. Let us give back in return as good an influence and as much as is given to us. Let us live so as to stimulate others, so that we call out the best powers and traits in them, and make them better than they are, because of our comprehension and inspiration. Our life is so bound up with our friends and teachers and heroes (whether present in the flesh or not), and we are so dependent upon them for nourishment and support, that we are rarely aware how little of us there would be left were they to be taken away. We are seldom conscious enough of the ground we are rooted in and the air we breathe. We can know ourselves best by knowing others. There are adventures of personality in acting and being acted upon, in studying and delighting in the ideas and folkways of people that hold much in store for those who will only seek them.