She is, Shields has said, "one of those women who erases herself, who somehow slips out of her own life," and although Shields's purpose in demonstrating this is essentially feminist, the novel is marked by a vast measure of empathy and humour.
"There is an vast untapped level of empathy, and if we can harness it then we can translate it into political change," he added.
His firm but loving approach to Apollo (and, then, to other horses he's invited to train) is an utterly absorbing display of a talent that involves a vast spectrum of concentration, empathy, courage, self-control, and dexterity, along with a fund of experience and knowledge to draw upon.
It is a thrilling narrative told with empathy and vast learning, rich with images that reinvigorate figures as familiar as Lincoln: "Whitman felt it would take four different sorts of genius -- Plutarch, Aeschylus, Michelangelo and Rabelais -- to truly sketch Lincoln's portrait".
An easy manner of command and an ability to project empathy, quick wits, vast self-confidence, moderate instincts and other equipage for high office radiate from the Tory leader.
In sharp contrast to the hurtful messages, there is a well of empathy in the vast majority of Newtowners I encounter.
"The vast majority of British Muslims have no empathy with suicide bombers or the British police, which is something that Four Lions taps in to very successfully," he says.
(Empathy? Self-awareness?) Part of that vast herd of young writers roaming the Brooklyn bars and coffee shops, Nate is in his element talking smart to some woman on a Christmas-lighted fire escape.
I get to test Miliband's famous empathy for myself when we visit a vast building site in Salford, where he tours the staff canteen meeting construction workers.
Empathy was measured in a variety of ways, but the vast majority of studies used self-report or other-report measures, and only six employed patient reports to measure physician empathy.
