human
Your friend Jack is delightful, Reginald remarked, looking up from his papers.
gpt
And his ebon-coloured hair contrasts prettily with the gold in yours. I should imagine that you are temperamental antipodes.
human
So we are; but friendship bridges the chasm between.
gpt
How long have you known him?
human
We have been chums ever since our sophomore year.
gpt
What attracted you in him?
human
It is no simple matter to define exactly one's likes and dislikes. Even a tiny protoplasmic animal appears to be highly complex under the microscope. How can we hope to analyse, with any degree of certitude, our souls, especially when, under the influence of feeling, we see as through a glass darkly.
gpt
It is true that personal feeling colours our spectacles and distorts the perspective. Still, we should not shrink from self-analysis. We must learn to see clearly into our own hearts if we would give vitality to our work. Indiscretion is the better part of literature, and it behooves us to hound down each delicate elusive shadow of emotion, and convert it into copy.
human
It is because I am so self-analytical that I realise the complexity of my nature, and am at a loss to define my emotions. Conflicting forces sway us hither and thither without neutralising each other. Physicology isn't physics. There were many things to attract me to Jack. He was subtler, more sympathetic, more feminine, perhaps, than the rest of my college-mates.
gpt
That I have noticed. In fact, his lashes are those of a girl. You still care for him very much?
human
It isn't a matter of caring. We are two beings that live one life.
gpt
A sort of psychic Siamese twins?
human
Almost. Why, the matter is very simple. Our hearts root in the same soil; the same books have nourished us, the same great winds have shaken our being, and the same sunshine called forth the beautiful blossom of friendship.
gpt
He struck me, if you will pardon my saying so, as a rather commonplace companion.
human
There is in him a hidden sweetness, and a depth of feeling which only intimate contact reveals. He is now taking his post-graduate course at Harvard, and for well-nigh two months we have not met; yet so many invisible threads of common experience unite us that we could meet after years and still be near each other.
gpt
You are very young,
human
What do you mean?
gpt
Ah--never mind.
human
So you do not believe that two hearts may ever beat as one?
gpt
No, that is an auditory delusion. Not even two clocks beat in unison. There is always a discrepancy, infinitesimal, perhaps, but a discrepancy nevertheless.
human
Hello, Ernest! How are you, old man?