What sudden, unexpected touches of pathos in
him!--bearing witness how the sorrow of humanity, the _Weltschmerz_, the
constant aching of its wounds, is ever present with him: but what a gift
also for the enjoyment of life in its subtleties, of enjoyment actually
refined by the need of some thoughtful economies and making the most of
things! Little arts of happiness he is ready to teach to others. The
quaint remarks of children which another would scarcely have heard, he
preserves--little flies in the priceless amber of his Attic wit--and has
his "Praise of chimney-sweepers" (as William Blake has written, with so
much natural pathos, the Chimney-sweeper's Song), valuing carefully
their white teeth, and fine enjoyment of white sheets in stolen sleep
at Arundel Castle, as he tells the story, anticipating something of the
mood of our deep humourists of the last generation. His simple
mother-pity for those who suffer by accident, or unkindness of nature,
blindness for instance, or fateful disease of mind like his sister's,
has something primitive in its largeness; and on behalf of ill-used
animals he is early in composing a _Pity's Gift.
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