Our finest relations
are not simply kept silent about, but buried under a positive
depth of silence never to be revealed. It may be that we are not
even yet acquainted. In human intercourse the tragedy begins,
not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence
is not understood. Then there can never be an explanation. What
avails it that another loves you, if he does not understand you?
Such love is a curse. What sort of companions are they who are
presuming always that their silence is more expressive than
yours? How foolish, and inconsiderate, and unjust, to conduct as
if you were the only party aggrieved! Has not your Friend always
equal ground of complaint? No doubt my Friends sometimes speak
to me in vain, but they do not know what things I hear which they
are not aware that they have spoken. I know that I have
frequently disappointed them by not giving them words when they
expected them, or such as they expected. Whenever I see my
Friend I speak to him; but the expecter, the man with the ears,
is not he.
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