CIGARETTE PAPERS.

Southland Times, Issue 21581, 19 December 1931, Page 6

CIGARETTE PAPERS.

PERSONALITY. “What is personality?’’ asks a correspondent, innocently offering a poser. The word itself is interesting and presents few difficulties. For its origin we have to go to the stage, for the Romans called an actor Persona from “per” and “sonare,” to sound, due to the fact that the actor wore a mask and spoke through a hole at the mouth. It is interesting to note that the word ■ “parson” has the same birth place. In English the word “person” has had a chequered career, and in its singular form it nowadays carries with it a contemptuous inference. To call any woman a “person” is almost as bad as calling her a woman, where ladies prevail. The suffix “ality” means “the substance of” and so “personality” becomes the substance of a person, and in the modern sense the substance of a human being. This does not advance us very far, but when we speak of a person’s personality we refer to the impression that all those things which go to make him, spiritual and physical, has upon his fellows. His individually deals only with those questions which distinguish him from his fellows. His personality may not be any different from the personality of any human being, but we refer to 1 the impression it gives of the person, and we employ various adjectives to discriminate between various types of impressions made. A man may be a commanding personality, and yet be short in stature, but what he loses in height he makes up with some other qualities giving him the power of command. We can believe that Napoleon had a commanding personality in spite of his shortness, and perhaps an obtrusive rotundity. We appreciate an engaging personality, very useful perhaps in salesmanship and in politics, and the qualities which go to make up this personality cannot be restricted to part of the person, nor is it possible to disengage any part of the person. A woman may be beautiful and still fail to make any impression as a human being. Hers will be a negative personality. Her appearance will be attractive, her beauty give her a certain amount of individuality, but if beyond that surface quality she makes no impression upon her fellows, she is at best a negative personality. It would be painful to lexographers to extend the application of personality to animals, and yet anybody with an understanding of horses, dogs and even cattle would be tempted to say that these, ,too, jean claim to. have..personality. Strictly

speaking, however, the word means the substance of a human being. It involves character, it involves everything which comes or sounds through the mask of appearance and that, I think, gives us the best affiliation between the modern word and its first parents. —CRITICUS.