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15 lines
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Text
15 lines
1,005 B
Text
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What is involved in such [close] relationships is a form of emotional
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chemistry, so far unexplained by any school of psychiatry I am aware of, that
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conditions nothing so simple as a choice between the poles of attraction and
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repulsion. You can meet some people thirty, forty times down the years, and
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they remain amiable bystanders, like the shore lights of towns that a sailor
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passes at stated times but never calls at on the regular run. Conversely,
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all considerations of sex aside, you can meet some other people once or twice
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and they remain permanent influences on your life.
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Everyone is aware of this discrepancy between the acquaintance seen
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as familiar wallpaper or instant friend. The chemical action it entails is
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less worth analyzing than enjoying. At any rate, these six pieces are about
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men with whom I felt an immediate sympat - to use a coining of Max Beerbohm's
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more satisfactory to me than the opaque vogue word "empathy".
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-- Alistair Cooke, "Six Men"
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