I take pleasure only in coming near to people. What avails any conversation but the sincere? Uncover thy face, uncover thy heart to me, be thou who thou may, and the purpose of purposes is answered to us both. We may well play together, or eat or swim or travel or labor together, if this is the result: if this is not, all that we have accomplished together is naught. Is plain dealing the summit of human well-being? What serenity and independence proceed out of it! Then I have not lost the day: then I have not lived in vain. To be a lover with a lover, to be a god with a god, seems to be only this happiness, no more, namely, the being truer: with a broader and deeper Yes and No. Is this also a fortune, a felicity, coming by the grace of God, and not to be compassed by any effort or genius, when it does not descend on us like beauty or light? I cannot establish it with all, or with most, or with many: then I could be happy with all: no, but only with a few.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
