rness for others. For a
moment the whole world seemed to present itself as a hospital of sick
persons; many of them sick in mind; all of whom it would be a brutality
not to humour, not to indulge.

"Why, when I went out to walk off my wayward fancies, did I confront
the very sort of incident (my unfortunate genius had surely beckoned it
from afar to vex me) likely to irritate them further? A party of men
were coming down the street. They were leading a fine race-horse; a
handsome beast, but badly hurt somewhere, in the circus, and useless.
They were taking him to slaughter; and I think the animal knew it: he
cast such looks, as if of mad appeal, to those who passed him, as he
went among the strangers to whom his former owner had committed him, to
die, in his beauty and pride, for just that one mischance or fault;
although the morning air was still so animating, and pleasant to snuff.
I could have fancied a human soul in the creature, swelling against its
luck. And I had come across the incident just when it would figure to
me as the very symbol [175] of our poor humanity, in its capacities for
pain, its wretched accidents, and those imperfect sympathies, which can
never quite identify us with one another; the very power of utterance
and appeal to others seeming to fail us, in proportion as our sorrows
come home to ourselves, are really our own. We are constructed for
suffering! What proofs of it does but one day afford, if we care to
note them, as we go--a whole long chaplet of sorrowful mysteries! Sunt
lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt.+

"Men's fortunes touch us! The little children of one of those
institutions for the support of orphans, now become fashionable among
us by way of memorial of eminent persons deceased, are going, in long
file, along the street, on their way to a holiday in the country. They
halt, and count themselves with an air of triumph, to show that they
are all there. Their gay chatter has disturbed a little group of
peasants; a young woman and her husband, who have brought the old
mother, now past work and witless, to place her in a house provided for
such afflicted people. They are fairly affectionate, but anxious how
the thing they have to do may go--hope only she may permit them to
leave her there behind quietly. And the poor old soul is excited by
the noise made by the children, and partly aware of what is going to
happen with her. She too begins to count--one, two, three,