It is an affair of disentangled, or stripped, minds. At home, besides being Peter or Jane, we also bear a general character husband or wife, brother or sister, chief, colleague, or subordinate. This love (essentially) ignores not only our physical bodies but that whole embodiment which consists of our family, job, past and connections. We meet like sovereign princes of independent states, abroad, on neutral ground, freed from our contexts. They will come out bit by bit, to furnish an illustration or an analogy, to serve as pegs for an anecdote never for their own sake. Of course you will get to know about most of these in the end. No one cares twopence about anyone else’s family, profession, class, income, race, or previous history. In a circle of true Friends each man is simply what he is: stands for nothing but himself. Friends find this solitude about them, this barrier between them and the herd, whether they want it or not. In one of the most beautiful passages, he considers how friendship differs from the other three types of love by focusing on its central question: “Do you see the same truth.” Lewis (November 29, 1898–November 22, 1963) picks up where Aristotle left off and examines the differences between the four main categories of intimate human bonds - affection, the most basic and expressive Eros, the passionate and sometimes destructive desire of lovers charity, the highest and most unselfish spiritual connection and friendship, the rarest, least jealous, and most profound relation. In his insightful 1960 book The Four Loves ( public library), C.S. But what, exactly, is at the heart of this “just and firm encounter”?

“What is so delicious as a just and firm encounter of two, in a thought, in a feeling?” Emerson marveled in his exquisite meditation on friendship.

Cs lewis book four loves