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318 obey, automatically, a word from another, to be astonished the next instant at having done so.

A like effect, in a partial form, is taking place between all of us all the time. The so-called personality of a man is nothing but the inter-individual action of his ideas upon other people. In its least complicated forms we are quite aware that it is merely the idea that acts, while the action is as often unconscious as conscious. Insensibly a man finds himself reproducing the ideas of those about him. Especially is this the case where fundamental sympathy exists between him and his causative, and preeminently so when that person is the woman he loves. At times he startles himself by tones and gestures which he recognizes as hers, and then glows all over at the reflection. With corresponding annoyance will he catch himself reproducing the tricks of manner of some one he cordially despises. In the one case, the background ideas help as a mordant to set the dye; in the other, the ideas themselves prove catching enough.

The fact is, that ideas are as catching as scarlet fever. We can no more escape