Humanity

“… the gratitude of men
Has oftner left me mourning (Wordsworth 67).”

When you help someone that is suffering or in a sorrowful situation, I believe their response shapes your response. If the person in need of help is rude or makes a negative comment, it is easier for someone to walk away and not consider how much that person was suffering or how bad their situation was. It seems that when someone truly reacts negatively to help the person that helped them can think of them as less human, or not think of them at all. I find the complete opposite to be true when someone is kind and thankful in response to help. When a person is suffering, such as Simon Lee was and they show an abundance of gratitude for very little help, it should break your heart. When a person shows a deep thankfulness they become kind and somehow more human and in turn you see your own humanity. It is easier to feel someone’s pain when they are kind. It seems to me this is why Wordsworth included how the “gratitude of men” affected him. I find Simon Lee to be similar to Goody Blake in that they both were old, poor, physically suffering and both in need of help. Luckily in this conversational poem Simon Lee was treated better than poor Goody Blake.