There are men and women whose presence seems to radiate sunshine, cheer
and optimism. You feel calmed and rested and restored in a moment to a
new and stronger faith in humanity. There are others who focus in an
instant all your latent distrust, morbidness and rebellion against
life. Without knowing why, you chafe and fret in their presence. You
lose your bearings on life and its problems. Your moral compass is
disturbed and unsatisfactory. It is made untrue in an instant, as the
magnetic needle of a ship is deflected when it passes near great
mountains of iron ore.

There are men who float down the stream of life like icebergs,--cold,
reserved, unapproachable and self-contained. In their presence you
involuntarily draw your wraps closer around you, as you wonder who left
the door open. These refrigerated human beings have a most depressing
influence on all those who fall under the spell of their radiated
chilliness. But there are other natures, warm, helpful, genial, who are
like the Gulf Stream, following their own course, flowing undaunted and
undismayed in the ocean of colder waters. Their presence brings warmth
and life and the glow of sunshine, the joyous, stimulating breath of
spring. There are men who are like malarious swamps,--poisonous,
depressing and weakening by their very presence. They make heavy,
oppressive and gloomy the atmosphere of their own homes; the sound of
the children's play is stilled, the ripples of laughter are frozen by
their presence. They go through life as if each day were a new big
funeral, and they were always chief mourners. There are other men who
seem like the ocean; they are constantly bracing, stimulating, giving
new draughts of tonic life and strength by their very presence.

There are men who are insincere in heart, and that insincerity is
radiated by their presence. They have a wondrous interest in your