The subtle difference here is that Mrs Gould is sorry for people, while Charles is sorry for things (see Mrs Gould being "sorry for homesick people" above ).

The root of Emily's initial attraction to Charles, as revealed in this paragraph, is two-fold. First, her altruism responds to his sympathy for "human misery," even if applied to mines; his interest in spectacles of "desolation" mirrors her own. But Mrs Gould also represents an organic or animate approach to life, and in this paragraph we see Charles imbuing the inanimate world of mines with the animate aspect of human personality. For a shining moment, it appears to Emily (and to us) that Charles' vision is essentially about making the inanimate world animate. But this is not the case, and the reverse process occurs: Charles himself becomes virtually inanimate due to the unliving influence of the "material interests."