I pity his ignorance and despise him.

The sentence juxtaposes two moral reactions that often coexist: compassion for a person’s lack of understanding (“I pity his ignorance”) and moral condemnation of what that ignorance produces (“and despise him”). Read this way, the speaker distinguishes between ignorance as a condition—something that can be lamented, perhaps even remedied—and the person’s chosen conduct or character, which may still merit contempt. In Dickensian terms, it captures a common tension in his social vision: sympathy for the circumstances that deform people (poverty, neglect, lack of education) alongside sharp satirical judgment of cruelty, hypocrisy, or willful blindness. The line’s bluntness also signals a moment of heightened emotion or moral clarity in dialogue.