If there be an exception to this gradual scale of importance according to intimacy, it must be in the case of one who is absolutely a stranger…. Accordingly, we find that by a provision which might be termed singular, if we did not think of the universal bounty and wisdom of God, a modification of our general regard has been prepared in the sympathetic tendencies of our nature for this case also. There is a species of affection to which the stranger gives birth merely as being a stranger. He is received and sheltered by our hospitality almost with the zeal with which our friendship delights to receive one with whom we have lived in cordial union, whose virtues we know and revere, and whose kindness has been to us no small part of the happiness of our life.
Dr. T. Brown: Lects. on the Philos. of the Human Mind.
