He had seen so much, so much! It was just a wonder to look at him and try to think how it must seem to have such experience behind one.
But it made you seem sorrowfully trivial, and the creature of a day, and such a short and paltry day, too.

And he didn't say anything to raise up your drooping pride--no, not a word.

He always spoke of men in the same old indifferent way--just as one speaks of bricks and manure-piles and such things; you could see that they were of no consequence to him, one way or the other.

He didn't mean to hurt us, you could see that; just as we don't mean to insult a brick when we disparage it; a brick's emotions are nothing to us; it never occurs to us to think whether it has any or not.
Once when he was bunching the most illustrious kings and conquerors and poets and prophets and pirates and beggars together--just a brick-pile--I was shamed into putting in a word for man, and asked him why he made so much difference between men and himself.

He had to struggle with that a moment; he didn't seem to understand how I could ask such a strange question.