The Law of Life by Jack London

In this story, a poor old man is surrounded by unconscious people, his ungrateful sons. He is blind and the only he can do is hear because he has developed or polished his sense of hearing. He lives in the middle of the snow, in a vast field of snow. His sons are bound for a better place where to live with commodities they don't have in that snowy place. His sons were far from asking him how he felt, or what is worse they left him behind like a dog or a worthless object. He had no other thing to think that was the law of life. Nevertheless, he thought that because he did not have anybody to worry for him. If he had had someone to take good care about him he would have had those thoughts. It was logical he thought that way, there was no remedy. In the middle of the story it appears a reindeer who is also abandoned by his fellows, after that he is surrounded by the enemy, the wolves, just as the old man was surrounded by his enemy, loneliness. And they had no other option more than surrender and accept their fate.

The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde

In this children's story are developed the themes of love, generosity, and sympathy. It is about a gold statue of a prince who had had a great life because everything in his lifetime was happiness. However. it is not until he is placed in such a highness from where he could see all the misery which the town went through that he realized what it felt to be unhappy. It turns out that one day a swallow rested under his feet and felt drops of water falling over her, then she was about to leave when she saw that tears were running down the prince's cheeks. So she asked what happened to him and he told her that he was upset because of what was happening to people in the town. Nevertheless, he proposed himself to aid the people and so he asked the swallow to be his messenger. The swallow agreed and so it happened that people were assisted and became happy.

But if this can be contrasted with the prince appearing in The Mask of the Red Death by Poe, we can say that prince was thick-skinned because learning he that the people outside were suffering from a terrible illness, what he did was to lock himself and his fellows in the palace to protect themselves from that awful virus. That is, he did not care about others' misfortune, but he did not escape from death. Death came to him and his people to retaliate. And getting back to the Happy Prince, he probably never knew about matters outside until he stood out.