His life is a tissue of sensations, which he distinguishes as they seem to come more directly from himself or his surroundings.

He is conscious of himself as a joyer or a sufferer, as that which craves, chooses, and is satisfied; conscious of his surroundings as it were of an inexhaustible purveyor, the source of aspects, inspirations, wonders, cruel knocks and transporting caresses.

Thus he goes on his way, stumbling among delights and agonies.
Matter is a far-fetched theory, and materialism is without a root in man.
To him everything is important in the degree to which it moves him.

The telegraph wires and posts, the electricity speeding from clerk to clerk, the clerks, the glad or sorrowful import of the message, and the paper on which it is finally brought to him at home, are all equally facts, all equally exist for man.

A word or a thought can wound him as acutely as a knife of steel.