bespatters
you with mud for ever.

An alms is irremediable. Gratitude is paralysis. A benefit is a sticky
and repugnant adherence which deprives you of free movement. Those
odious, opulent, and spoiled creatures whose pity has thus injured you
are well aware of this. It is done--you are their creature. They have
bought you--and how? By a bone taken from their dog and cast to you.
They have flung that bone at your head. You have been stoned as much as
benefited. It is all one. Have you gnawed the bone--yes or no? You have
had your place in the dog-kennel as well. Then be thankful--be ever
thankful. Adore your masters. Kneel on indefinitely. A benefit implies
an understood inferiority accepted by you. It means that you feel them
to be gods and yourself a poor devil. Your diminution augments them.
Your bent form makes theirs more upright. In the tones of their voices
there is an impertinent inflexion. Their family matters--their
marriages, their baptisms, their child-bearings, their progeny--all
concern you. A wolf cub is born to them. Well, you have to compose a
sonnet. You are a poet because you are low. Isn't it enough to make the
stars fall! A little more, and they would make you wear their old shoes.

"Who have you got there, my dear? How ugly he is! Who is that man?"

"I do not know. A sort of scholar, whom I feed."

Thus converse these idiots, without even lowering their voice. You hear,
and remain mechanically amiable. If you are ill, your masters will send
for the doctor--not their own. Occasionally they may even inquire after
you. Being of a different species from you, and at an inaccessible
height above you, they are affable. Their height makes them easy. They
know that equality is impossible. By force of disdain they are polite.
At table they give you a little nod. Sometimes they absolutely know how
your name is spelt! They only show that they are your protectors by
walking unconsciously over all the delicacy and susceptibility you
possess. They treat you with good-nature. Is all this to be borne?

No doubt he was eager to punish Josiana. He must teach her with whom she
had to deal!

O my rich gentry, because you cannot eat up everything, because opulence
produces indigestion seeing that your stomachs are no bigger than ours,
because it is, after all, better to distribute the remainder than to
throw it away, you exalt a morsel flung to the poor into an act of
magnificence. Oh, you give us bread, you give