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WHO
ARE OUR RELATIONS?
THE man
or woman who if most like you in tastes,
motives, and habits of thought, and
to whom you feel most attracted, may
not be brother, sister, cousin, or
any physical relative at all. But
such person is to you a very near
relation.
Your
brothers or sisters may not be like
you at all in mind, taste, and inclination.
You may associate with them because
they are members of the family, but
were you not to know them as brothers,
sisters, or other relatives, or were
you to see elsewhere their exact counterparts
in character, you might not like such
counterparts at all.
Physical
or " blood relationship"
has very little bearing on the real
or mental relationship. It is possible
for a brother or sister, a father
or mother to be very closely allied
to you in thought and sympathy. Again,
it is possible for a father or mother,
brother or sister, to be very remote
from you in thought and sympathy,
and to live in a realm or atmosphere
of thought very unlike yours.
You can
live neither healthfully nor comfortably,
unless with those whose thought-atmosphere
(a literal emanation from them) is
similar to your own. Physical relationship
may or may not furnish such at atmosphere.
Compel a labouring man whose thought
goes little beyond his eating, drinking
and daily round of work, to live exclusively
with a company of artists and philosophers,
seeing none of his own kind and order
of thought, and that man's spirits
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