These points gave the quality of interest to his discourse; and the fact of his speaking direct from his own resources, and not borrowing or stealing from books⁠—here a dry fact, and there a trite phrase, and elsewhere a hackneyed opinion⁠—ensured a freshness, as welcome as it was rare. Before my eyes, too, his disposition seemed to unfold another phase; to pass to a fresh day: to rise in new and nobler dawn.

His mother possessed a good development of benevolence, but he owned a better and larger. I found, on accompanying him to the Basse-Ville ⁠—the poor and crowded quarter of the city⁠—that his errands there were as much those of the philanthropist as the physician. I understood presently that⁠—cheerfully, habitually, and in single-minded unconsciousness of any special merit distinguishing his deeds⁠—he was achieving, amongst a very wretched population, a world of active good. The lower orders liked him well; his poor patients in the hospitals welcomed him with a sort of enthusiasm.