Alarmed at the intensity of her attachment to Ida, Maria reasoned that rather than turning a single person into the center of gravity in our emotional universe, our attachments should be distributed among many people, each fulfilling a different need—one providing intellectual stimulation, another rendering us “more elastic and buoyant, more happy and radiating more happiness, because we know him,” another inspiring in us such “warmth of affection” that “our hearts grow as if in a summer feeling.”
