SECRET OF PERSONALITY.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 123, 26 May 1928, Page 7 (Supplement)

SECRET OF PERSONALITY.

WHAT IS THE MYSTERY? PSYCHOLOGY HAS NOT SOLVED IT. The power of personality is a mystery tvliich psychology Las utterly failed to solve, Dominators are rare. World Nominators Rre still rarer. Mussolini, for example, is almost uniquely notorious. The whole world knows his name nnrl his features. He has projected his l>oioon,il:tj- into every language. 1 am fascinated by these projectors, vliethc-r they are rulers or writers, actors oi' politicians, "movie" kings like Chaplin or cartoonists like Low and Strube (writes Janus Douglas). I wonder how iii!ieh of tlieir art is conscious. Are they born or made? If they are made, *'lio makes them? Do they make themselves or do we make them? To gratify my curiosity I paid 24/ to see Clmliapine projecting his personality into the vast Sahara of the ■Abert Hall. The moment he appeared 1 Haw a ghost—the ghost <>i Gladstone. I atleeted me as Glad -L«jtio ;ifleeted me in the House of Commons. It was the old lion with the old inane, the llaming «'ye. tlie lightning look. the glowing features, the poetry of poise, the majesty gesture, and the necromancy of voice, t'dd it was to watch the fire of personality leaping out of this sexagenarian »s it n.-id to leap out of the ancient Gladstone. Something in the mind of the singer changed the tiery mask of his luce and the movements of his hand into u living outline of liis thoughts and cautions. His llesli and his bones Painted pictures in the air. His skin 'Meditated. The man anrl the voice Were one revelation. Gladstone vibrated in you through layers of literary wadding. H'l- - to-day are unread and unreadable. p.ut f & fi|| recapture the •""'•limit ini'iit of his presence. I can see fl'ost> gesl urea. I can hear tlio.se tones. Thalia | > i n e i- master of the ban;C physical mavi«'. 'here it. it—f lip waves that emanate fi'"in l hex. potent, being-. \v;: \ e j that we R 'f 11■ >t avai'e of. waves of power that J'uss out. of their minds into ours. Ilow plliei'wi&e could Chaliapine, with his

fading voice, awe and melt eight thousand astonished souls who are ignorant of his native tongue?

Perhaps wireless is nearer to the heart of the enigma than we imagine. There may be emanations that reacn our senses which are subtler than sounds or words. I caught from Chaliapine hints of high tragedy and rumours of dim vision that seemed to rise from the deeps of the Russian soul, infinite melancholies, and pities and ironies, brooding agonies, reveries of fustration, and dreamy bewilderments of wonder.

These runes and hieroglyphs disturbed and distressed me, for 1 was groping after their undertones and overtones iu a mist of sensations. A haggard glance rent the darkness like a flash of lightning. A gleam of woe shone through the clouds. A tremor of loveliness softened my dull heart.

"Am I hypnotised?" asked an imp in my mind. "Am I seeing what is not there?" Frankly, I canuot answer the imp's question. All I know is that 1 quivered a quiver as when I surprise Shakespeare or Keats or Wordsworth at their best.

There is the secret of personality. It wakes some dead thing in us. It suddenly compels life to be more intense. It arouses your awareness of your own sleeping vitality. It is a resurrection.

But how the miracle is wrought cannot be explained. You up out of your grave for a wild moment, and you forget that you are dead and buried. Every Lazarus has these returns to life. If only he could have them once a day!