When I Meet A Man,

The Concept Of Guilt Is Found Most Powerfully Developed Even In The Most Primitive Communal Forms Which We Know... The Man Is Guilty Who Violates One Of The Original Laws Which Dominate The Society And Which Are Mostly Derived From A Divine Founder; The Boy Who Is Accepted Into The Tribal Community And Learns Its Laws, Which Bind Him Thenceforth, Learns To Promise; This Promise Is Often Given Under The Sign Of Death, Which Is Symbolically Carried Out On The Boy, With A Symbolical Rebirth.

But When A Man Draws A Lifeless Thing Into His Passionate Longing For Dialogue, Lending It Independence And As It Were A Soul, Then There May Dawn In Him The Presentiment Of A World-wide Dialogue With The World-happening That Steps Up To Him Even In His Environment, Which Consists Partially Of Things. Or Do You Seriously Think That The Giving And Taking Of Signs Halts On The Threshold Of That Business Where An Honest And Open Spirit Is Found?

Through The Thou A Person Becomes I.

Here Is The Infallible Test. Imagine Yourself In A Situation Where You Are Alone, Wholly Alone On Earth, And You Are Offered One Of The Two, Books Or Men. I Often Hear Men Prizing Their Solitude But That Is Only Because There Are Still Men Somewhere On Earth Even Though In The Far Distance. I Knew Nothing Of Books When I Came Forth From The Womb Of My Mother, And I Shall Die Without Books, With Another Human Hand In My Own. I Do, Indeed, Close My Door At Times And Surrender Myself To A Book, But Only Because I Can Open The Door Again And See A Human Being Looking At Me.

Persons Appear By Entering Into Relation To Other Persons.