Thomas Wentworth Higginson, The new world and the new book

[74] remarked that this trait develops with civilization; a hundred wild dogs are more alike than their domesticated kindred, and so of a hundred wild men. If the step we have taken in America, away from courts and hereditary institutions, be a step in civilization, then it is certainly to lead to more individuality, not less. Even in England, where is marked individuality to be found? Surely, among the men who have made the name of England great; her artists, authors, inventors, scientific teachers. Yet Mr. Besant has lately pointed out, in a very impressive passage, that scarcely one of these men ever went near the court of England. The marked individuality of that nation, therefore, is distinctly outside of the court circle; and, if so, individuality would gain and not lose by dropping those circles altogether. The difficulty is that the court circle substitutes for this quality a mere variation of costume—a robe, a decoration. But in reality these things subdue individuality, instead of developing it; as every recruiting officer found, during our Civil War, that recruits became more docile the moment they put on the uniform; and a lady