Synthesized answer
Loved ones can suddenly seem distant, as if they are on "life's further shore" [2]. This feeling can arise on certain days when they appear to be among us, but then a sudden evening arrives, making them so far away that one "dare not look at them, or ask a question" [2]. The passage suggests that at these moments, there is a realization that it is time to affirm something "graver, deeper, more human, more real than friendship, pity or love" [2].
The author describes this sudden distance as a mystery that "ever eludes us, and all our searchings are vain" [2]. The passages do not elaborate further on the cause or nature of this sudden distance, only its effect on the observer's feelings and perceptions [2].
Synthesized from the book passages below. Chat with the book on Feynman for follow-up.
From the book
. Sometimes they would walk with us along the corridor, or in the courtyard, and we could scarcely keep pace with them. Sometimes they would join us at our games, and the game would no longer be the same. There were some who could not find their brethren. They would wander in solitude in our midst, while we played and shouted: they had no friends among those who were not about to die. And yet we loved them, and the deepest friendliness shone from their eyes. What was there that divided us from them? What is there that divides us all? What is this sea of mysteries in whose depths we…
oud that falls around them at the moment when men seem on the point of touching them, or when hurt has been done them. Some days there are when they seem to be of us, and among us, but a sudden evening comes and they are so far away that we dare not look at them, or ask a question. It is as though they were on life’s further shore, and the feeling rushes in upon us that now, at last, the hour has come for affirming that which is graver, deeper, more human, more real than friendship, pity or love; for saying the thing that is piteously flapping its wings at the back of our throat, and…
notwithstanding its seeming indifference, is it reserved for a time when doubt and uncertainty shall be no longer.... Its voice does not make itself heard now because its moment for speaking has not yet come; and it is never those whom we enfold in our arms that we love the most deeply. For there is a side of life—and it is the best, the purest, the noblest side—which never blends with the ordinary life, and the eyes even of lovers themselves can seldom pierce through the masonry that is built up of silence and love.... Or was it that we avoided them, because, though younger than…
d be impossible for me to recall what my thoughts were at that earnest moment. They were doubtless of no significance. I was probably thinking of the last face I had seen, of the quivering gleam of a lantern at a deserted street corner; and, nevertheless, _everything took place_ in a light a thousand times purer, a thousand times higher, than had there intervened all the forces of pity and love which I command in my thoughts and my heart. We parted, and not a word was spoken, but at one and the same moment had we understood our inexpressible thought. We know now that another love had…
ences of love. They lie in wait for us, night and day, at our threshold, and are no less beautiful than their brothers. And it is thanks to them that those who have seldom wept may know the life of the soul almost as intimately as those to whom much grief has come: and therefore it is that such of us as have loved deeply have learnt many secrets that are unknown to others: for thousands and thousands of things quiver in silence on the lips of true friendship and love, that are not to be found in the silence of other lips, to which friendship and love are unknown.... THE AWAKENING OF…