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Of course, this is asking a lot of you and me, who are, after all, pretty good people, who recognize despair when we see it and even respond generously when appeals are made. Especially in this season. We are very good in this season. And how realistic was Donne's idea, given human indifference and lapses of memory? Yet at times the world can feel as small as Donne's. If nothing else, we have vulnerability to share. A reporter walking about Bhopal last week remarked how on some streets people were living normally, while adjacent streets were strewn with bodies. Everything depended on where the wind was blowing. -By Roger Rosenblatt