Human Intercourse

"Human Intercourse" by Philip Gilbert Hamerton is a collection of thoughtful essays from the 1800s that looks at the complicated ways people connect. It talks about big ideas like friendship and love and how society can make things tricky. Hamerton uses essays to show how people relate to each other and suggests that real connection goes beyond simple rules, such as when the author thinks back to his connection with Ralph Waldo Emerson, whom he credits for inspiring individuality and self-reliance. The text looks at how hard it is to set strict rules for human interactions, because every friendship is molded by individual histories, like when he shares a tale of an odd couple becoming friends. Ultimately he reasons that understanding others means being open-minded and observant about complexities.