But this superficial element, while securing privacy to the pure nature, also aids it to expression.  It emphasizes the outlines of Personality by gentle contrast.  It is like the shadow in the landscape, without which all the sunbeams of heaven could not reveal with precision a single object.  Assured lovers resort to happy banter and light oppositions, to give themselves a sweeter sense of unity of heart.  The child, with a cunning which only Nature has taught, will sometimes put a little honey of refusal into its kisses before giving them; the maiden adds to her virgin blooms the further attraction of virgin coyness and reserve; the civilizing dinner-table would lose all its dignity in losing its delays; and so everywhere, delicate denial, withholding reserve have an inverse force, and add a charm of emphasis to gift, assent, attraction, and sympathy.  How is the word Immortality emphasized to our hearts by the perpetual spectacle of death!  The joy and suggestion of it could, indeed, never visit us, had not this momentary loud denial been uttered in our ears.  Such, therefore, as have learned to interpret these oppositions in Nature, hear in the jarring note of Death only a jubilant proclamation of life eternal; while all are thus taught the longing for immortality, though only by their fear of the contrary.  And so is the pure universal nature of man affirmed by these provocations of contrast and insulation on the surface.  We feel the personality far more, and far more sweetly, for its being thus divided from our own.  From behind this veil the pure nature comes to us with a kind of surprise, as out of another heaven.  The joy of truth and delight of beauty are born anew for us from each pair of chanting lips and beholding eyes; and each new soul that comes promises another gift of the universe.  Whoever, in any time or under any sky, sees the worth and wonder of existence, sees it for me; whatever language he speak, whatever star he inhabit, we shall one day meet, and through the confession of his heart all my ancient possessions will become a new gain; he shall make for me a natal day of creation, showing the producing breath, as it goes forth from the lips of God, and spreads into the blue purity of sky, or rounds into the luminance of suns; the hills and their pines, the vales and their blooms, and heroic men and beauteous women, all that I have loved or reverenced, shall come again, appearing and trooping out of skies never visible before.  Because of these dividing lines between souls, each new soul is to all the others a possible factor of heaven.

Such uses does individuality subserve.  Yet it is capable of these ministries only as it does indeed minister.  All its uses are lost with the loss of its humility and subordinance.  It is the porter at the gate, furthering the access of lawful, and forbidding the intrusion of unlawful visitors to the mansion; who becomes worse than useless, if in surly excess of zeal he bar the gate against all,