On more than one occasion in Cedric's hearing he had compared himself with Charles Lamb.
Custom had made the presence of society, streets and crowds, the theatre and the picture-gallery, an absolute necessity.

Why, in some moods he would take this as his text, and discourse most eloquently on what he called the spectacle of the streets.

"There are few days when there are not groups of Hogarth-like figures," he would say--"sketches from the life, abounding in humour or infinite pathos.

There is a blind beggar and his dog over in a corner by the Temple station," he continued, "that I never can pass without putting a penny in the box.
The dog's face is perfectly human in its expression.

The eyes speak.