PUBLIC OPINION by WALTER LIPPMANN TO FAYE LIPPMANN ...

sharply separated. He would say that the distinction drawn by
theologians was arbitrary and external, because many different selves
were grouped together as higher provided they fitted into the
theologian's categories, but he would recognize nevertheless that here
was an authentic clue to the variety of human nature.
We have learned to note many selves, and to be a little less ready to
issue judgment upon them. We understand that we see the same body, but
often a different man, depending on whether he is dealing with a
social equal, a social inferior, or a social superior; on whether he
is making love to a woman he is eligible to marry, or to one whom he
is not; on whether he is courting a woman, or whether he considers
himself her proprietor; on whether he is dealing with his children,
his partners, his most trusted subordinates, the boss who can make him
or break him; on whether he is struggling for the necessities of life,
or successful; on whether he is dealing with a friendly alien, or a
despised one; on whether he is in great danger, or in perfect
security; on whether he is alone in Paris or among his family in
Peoria.
People differ widely, of course, in the consistency of their
characters, so widely that they may cover the whole gamut of
differences between a split soul like Dr. Jekyll's and an utterly
singleminded Brand, Parsifal, or Don Quixote. If the selves are too
unrelated, we distrust the man; if they are too inflexibly on one
track we find him arid, stubborn, or eccentric. In the repertory of
characters, meager for the isolated and the self-sufficient, highly
varied for the adaptable, there is a whole range of selves, from that
one at the top which we should wish God to see, to those at the bottom
that we ourselves do not dare to see. There may be octaves for the
family,--father, Jehovah, tyrant,--husband, proprietor, male,--lover,
lecher,--for the occupation,--employer, master, exploiter,--competitor,
intriguer, enemy,--subordinate, courtier, snob. Some never come out
into public view. Others are called out only by exceptional
circumstances.
But the characters take their form from a man's conception of the
situation in which he finds himself. If the environment to which he
is sensitive happens to be the smart set, he will imitate the character
he conceives to be appropriate. That character will tend to act as
modulator of his bearing, his speech, his choice of subjects, his
preferences. Much of the comedy of life lies here, in the way people
imagine their characters for situations that are strange to them: the
professor among promoters, the deacon at a poker game, the
cockney in the country, the paste diamond among real diamonds.
3
Into the making of a man's characters there enters a variety of