A friendship between Eugene and his neighbor, Father Goriot, had been
growing up for several days past. This secret friendship and the
antipathy that the student had begun to entertain for Vautrin arose
from the same psychological causes. The bold philosopher who shall
investigate the effects of mental action upon the physical world will
doubtless find more than one proof of the material nature of our
sentiments in other animals. What physiognomist is as quick to discern
character as a dog is to discover from a stranger's face whether this
is a friend or no? Those by-words--"atoms," "affinities"--are facts
surviving in modern languages for the confusion of philosophic
wiseacres who amuse themselves by winnowing the chaff of language to
find its grammatical roots. We _feel_ that we are loved. Our
sentiments make themselves felt in everything, even at a great
distance. A letter is a living soul, and so faithful an echo of the
voice that speaks in it, that finer natures look upon a letter as one
of love's most precious treasures. Father Goriot's affection was of
the instinctive order, a canine affection raised to a sublime pitch;
he had scented compassion in the air, and the kindly respect and
youthful sympathy in the student's heart.
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