PERSONALITY.

Cromwell Argus, Volume LXI, Issue 3163, 18 May 1931, Page 2

PERSONALITY.

Are You Among the Lucky Ones? From the address he gave recently in Glasgow, Sir Harry Lauder is obviously aware that much of his success is due to his personality. In his profession, of course, personality is particularly, important. He himself has a beautiful voice, his songs have always a lilting melody, but these facts alone do not explain his exceptional appeal. Beyond his definable talents he has that elusive quality known as personality. Our great entertainers have always possessed it. Maurice Chevalier has it, Brock, the clown, has it, Charlie Chaplin has it—these last two examples providing proof that it can be expressed even in pantomime, that the voice is not necessarily part of it. Not merely on the music-hall stage, but in every field, personality exercises its sway. Emerson points out in one of his essays that many great men do not in the record of facts equal their own fame. Sir Philip Sidney and Sir Walter Raleigh, for example, are men of great figure and of few deeds.

What Emerson calls character is more generally known to-day as personality. Its ability to acquire for its possessor a fame greater than his deeds is obviously of supreme value; lucky is the man possessing it. There are few of us who do not frequently experience in life the disappointment of being left behind by rivals with no greater talents. In actual ability, many plodding underlings are superior to those over them. Sometimes, of course, this is because those over them have "a friend at Court," as the saying goes, but more often it is because they have a quality their less fortunate fellows do not possess—personality. And this quality, especially on the higher rungs of the ladder of success, where places are few, outweighs all others. Can personality be achieved? Sir Harry Lauder's declaration that without enthusiasm personality doesn't matter a jot suggests a way towards its achievement. For, generally, enthusiasm is a part of personality, enthusiasm itself being the product of sincerity.

People with personality are sure of themselves, and therefore are pleased to be themselves*' They ape no one—they feel there is no necessity. We who are less sure of ourselves are continually seeking patterns to copy, endeavoring to impose another's personality on our own. The result is nondescript.

R. L. Stevenson provides a good illustration in this connection, an illustration applicable to other activities than literature. In his 'prentice days he practised the "sedulous ape" to various literary stylists, but from the alembic of his own personal.ty an individual style emerged.