The best type of affection is reciprocally1) life-giving;each receives affection with joy and givesit without effort,and each finds the whole worldmore interesting in conse-quence of the existenceof this reciprocal happiness.There is,however,another kind,by no mean s uncommon,inwhich one person sucks the vitality2) of the other,one re-ceives what the other gives,butgive s almost nothing in return.Some very vital people belong t o this bloodsucking3)type.They extract the vitality from one victim after another,but while they prosper andgrow interesting,those upon whom they live grow pale and dim4) and dull.Such people useothers as means to their own ends,and never consider them as ends inthemselves.Fundamentally they are not interested in those whom for the moment they thinkthey love;they are interested only in the stimulus to their own activities,perhaps of a quiteimpersonal sort.
Evidently this springs from some defect in their nature,but it is one not altogether easy eitherto diagnose or to cure.It is a characteristic frequently associated with great ambition,andis rooted,I should say,in an unduly5) one-sided view of what makes humanhappiness.Affection in the sense of a genuine reciprocal interest of two persons i n eachother,not solely as means to each other' s good,but rather as a combination having acommon good,is one of the most important elements of real happiness,and the man w hoseego is so enclosed within steel walls that this enlargement of it is impossible misses the bestthat life has to offer,however successful he may be in his career.A too powerful ego is aprison from which a man must escape if he is to enjoy the world to the full.A capacity forgenuine affection is one of the marks of the man who has escaped from this prison of self.Toreceive affection is by no means enough;affection which is received should liberate theaffection which is to be given,and only where both exist in equal measure does affectionachieve its best possibilities.
Jewel梦梦
perfect voice