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.