Through all these things the ill-dressed, coarse, ungainly pedant had
struggled manfully up to eminence and command. It was natural that, in
the exercise of his power, he should be _eo immitior, quia toleraverat_;
that, though his heart was undoubtedly generous and humane, his
demeanour in society should be harsh and despotic. For severe distress
he had sympathy, and not only sympathy, but munificent relief; but for
the suffering which a harsh world inflicts upon a delicate mind he had
no pity, for it was a kind of suffering which he could scarcely
conceive. He would carry home on his shoulders a sick and starving girl
from the streets. He turned his house into a place of refuge for a crowd
of wretched old creatures who could find no other asylum; nor could all
their peevishness and ingratitude weary out his benevolence. But the
pangs of wounded vanity seemed to him ridiculous; and he scarcely felt
sufficient compassion even for the pangs of wounded affection. He had
seen and felt so much of sharp misery that he was not affected by paltry
vexations; and he seemed to think that everybody ought to be as much
hardened to those vexations as himself. He was angry with Boswell for
complaining of a headache, with Mrs. Thrale for grumbling about the dust
on the road, or the smell of the kitchen.
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