a nursling!--I am quite ashamed of myself!--But don't despise me; dear
Belford, don't despise me, I beseech thee.

I ever honoured a man that could weep for the distresses of others; and
ever shall, said I; and such a one cannot be insensible of his own.

However, I could not help being visibly moved at the poor fellow's emotion.

Now, said the brutal Mowbray, do I think thee insufferable, Jack. Our
poor friend is already a peg too low; and here thou art letting him down
lower and lower still. This soothing of him in his dejected moments, and
joining thy womanish tears with his, is not the way; I am sure it is not.
If our Lovelace were here, he'd tell thee so.

Thou art an impenetrable creature, replied I; unfit to be present at a
scene, the terrors of which thou wilt not be able to feel till thou
feelest them in thyself; and then, if thou hadst time for feeling, my
life for thine, thou behavest as pitifully as those thou thinkest most
pitiful.

Then turning to the poor sick man, Tears, my dear Belton, are no signs of
an unmanly, but, contrarily of a humane nature; they ease the
over-charged heart, which would burst but for that kindly and natural
relief.

Give sorrow words (says Shakspeare)
--The grief that does not speak,
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break.

I know, my dear Belton, thou usedst to take pleasure in repetitions from