THE ALCHEMY OF INFLUENCE.
If events change men, much more persons. No man can meet another on
the street without making some mark upon him. We say we exchange words
when we meet; what we exchange is souls. And when intercourse is very
close and very frequent, so complete is this exchange that
recognizable bits of the one soul begin to show in the other's
nature, and the second is conscious of a similar and growing debt to
the first.
Now, we become like those whom we habitually reflect. I could prove
from science that applies even to the physical framework of
animals--that they are influenced and organically changed by the
environment in which they live.
This mysterious approximating of two souls, who has not witnessed? Who
has not watched some old couple come down life's pilgrimage hand in
hand, with such gentle trust and joy in one another that their very
faces wore the self-same look? These were not two souls; it was a
composite soul. It did not matter to which of the two you spoke, you
would have said the same words to either.
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