Though he were to represent Coalchester in the House of Commons, what honour were there in that to one already so mysteriously honoured?
Tears bring a strange new sight to the eyes, and "a new perception both of grieving love" made Theophil see, and love to see, many things in the world he had never noticed before.

His eyes were opened to behold the many mourners who go about the streets, the widows who walk in darkness, and all the shapes of blackness moving phantom-like through the coloured traffic; not all true children of sorrow, indeed, though wearing its habit, but, true or not, symbols of the power and majesty of death in the world.

For the involuntary honour paid to death even by the ignorantly busy, and happy, he kept ever a grateful and a jealous eye; and as some funeral _cortege_ passed like a dream, Charon's barge amid all the motley craft of merchandise and pleasure, he would watch sternly to see if the fat and prosperous moment would do honour to the carriages of the king.

For a bowed head or a doffed hat he felt a personal gratitude.

And, since Jenny died, he seemed to be always meeting that phantom procession in the streets.
Once, as he passed along the High Street, he had noticed a crowd round a dying horse.