No heads, toes, angles of their souls stuck out anywhere.

In the sea of their environments they were drowned; no leg braved the air, no arm emerged wet and naked waving at the skies; shop-persons, aristocrats, workmen, officials, they were all respectable.

And he himself as respectable as any.
He returned, thus moody, to his rooms and, with the impetuosity which distinguished him when about to do an unwise thing, he seized a pen and poured out before Antonia some of his impressions: ...

Mean is the word, darling; we are mean, that's what 's the matter with us, dukes and dustmen, the whole human species--as mean as caterpillars.

To secure our own property and our own comfort, to dole out our sympathy according to rule just so that it won't really hurt us, is what we're all after.