Some words worth relaying

I maintain that one of the best pleasures of browsing a library collection -- particularly a small to medium-sized one -- is what you find when you don't find what you're looking for.

I found a copy of William Carlos Williams's Selected Essays a month or so back (while searching for something else, I don't remember what) and have been been reading it on and off. Today this paragraph caught my fancy:

I think these days when there is so little to believe in——when the old loyalties——God, country, and the hope of Heaven——aren't very real, we are more dependent than we should be on our friends. The only thing left to believe in——someone who seems beautiful.