noting only the facts which suit with his preconception; and
wherever a person fancies himself unjustly judged, he at once
and finally gives up the effort to speak truth. With our
chosen friends, on the other hand, and still more between
lovers (for mutual understanding is love's essence), the truth
is easily indicated by the one and aptly comprehended by the
other. A hint taken, a look understood, conveys the gist of
long and delicate explanations; and where the life is known
even YEA and NAY become luminous. In the closest of all
relations - that of a love well founded and equally shared -
speech is half discarded, like a roundabout, infantile process
or a ceremony of formal etiquette; and the two communicate
directly by their presences, and with few looks and fewer
words contrive to share their good and evil and uphold each
other's hearts in joy. For love rests upon a physical basis;
it is a familiarity of nature's making and apart from
voluntary choice. Understanding has in some sort outrun
knowledge, for the affection perhaps began with the
acquaintance; and as it was not made like other relations, so
it is not, like them, to be perturbed or clouded. Each knows
more than can be uttered; each lives by faith, and believes by
a natural compulsion; and between man and wife the language of
the body is largely developed and grown strangely eloquent.
The thought that prompted and was conveyed in a caress would
only lose to be set down in words - ay, although Shakespeare
himself should be the scribe.

(1) A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS,
Wednesday, p. 283.