mirror of
https://we.phorge.it/source/phorge.git
synced 2024-11-15 03:12:41 +01:00
15 lines
1,005 B
Text
15 lines
1,005 B
Text
|
What is involved in such [close] relationships is a form of emotional
|
||
|
chemistry, so far unexplained by any school of psychiatry I am aware of, that
|
||
|
conditions nothing so simple as a choice between the poles of attraction and
|
||
|
repulsion. You can meet some people thirty, forty times down the years, and
|
||
|
they remain amiable bystanders, like the shore lights of towns that a sailor
|
||
|
passes at stated times but never calls at on the regular run. Conversely,
|
||
|
all considerations of sex aside, you can meet some other people once or twice
|
||
|
and they remain permanent influences on your life.
|
||
|
Everyone is aware of this discrepancy between the acquaintance seen
|
||
|
as familiar wallpaper or instant friend. The chemical action it entails is
|
||
|
less worth analyzing than enjoying. At any rate, these six pieces are about
|
||
|
men with whom I felt an immediate sympat - to use a coining of Max Beerbohm's
|
||
|
more satisfactory to me than the opaque vogue word "empathy".
|
||
|
-- Alistair Cooke, "Six Men"
|