Thomas Wingfold. Volume II by George MacDonald

As Wingfold walked back to his lodgings, he found a new element / mingling with the varied matter of his previous inquiry. Human / suffering laid hold upon him -- neither as his own nor as that of / humanity, but as that of men and women -- known or unknown, it / mattered nothing: there were hearts in the world from whose agony / broke terrible cries, hearts of which sad faces like that of Miss / Lingard were the exponents. Such hearts might be groaning and / writhing in any of the houses he passed, and, even if he knew the / hearts, and what the vampire that sucked their blood, he could do / nothing for their relief.

Little indeed could he have imagined the life of such a / comfort-guarded lady as Miss Lingard, exposed to the intrusion of / any terror-waking monster, from the old ocean of chaos, into the / quiet flow of its meadow-banked river! And what multitudes must / there not be in the world -- what multitudes in our island -- how many / even in Glaston, whose hearts, lacerated by no remorse, overwhelmed / by no crushing sense of guilt, yet knew their own bitterness, and / had no friend radiant enough to make a sunshine in their shady / places! He fell into mournful mood over the troubles of his race. / Always a kind-hearted fellow, he had not been used to think about / such things; he had had troubles of his own, and had got through at / least some of them; people must have troubles, else would they grow / unendurable for pride and insolence. But now that he had begun to / hope he saw a glimmer somewhere afar at the end of the darksome cave / in which he had all at once discovered that he was buried alive, he / began also to feel how wretched those must be who were groping on / without even a hope in their dark eyes.