The years of monotonous toil spent in the factory were never regretted by Livingstone. On the contrary, he regarded his experience there as an important part of his education, and had it been possible, he would have liked "to begin life over again in the same lowly style, and to pass through the same hardy training[7]." The fellow-feeling he acquired for the children of labor was invaluable for enabling him to gain influence with the same class, whether in Scotland or in Africa. As we have already seen, he was essentially a man of the people. Not that he looked unkindly on the richer classes,--he used to say in his later years, that he liked to see people in comfort and at leisure, enjoying the good things of life,--but he felt that the burden-bearing multitude claimed his sympathy most. How quick the people are, whether in England or in Africa, to find out this sympathetic spirit, and how powerful is the hold of their hearts which those who have it gain! In poetic feeling, or at least in the power of expressing it, as in many other things, David Livingstone and Robert Burns were a great contrast; but in sympathy with the people they were alike, and in both cases the people felt it. Away and alone, in the heart of Africa, when mourning "the pride and avarice that make man a wolf to man," Livingstone would welcome the "good time coming," humming the words of Burns: [Footnote 7: _Missionary Travels_, p. 6.] "When man to man, the world o'er, Shall brothers be for a' that." In all the toils and trials of his life, he found the good of that early Blantyre discipline, which had forced him to bear irksome toil with patience, until the toil ceased to be irksome, and even became a pleasure.