But there had been an unction, an hypocritical sentimentality, about Mrs. Romer’s tone, that had made him hate her the more bitterly of the two. The fact that she also--stupid lump of fawning obesity as she was!--was a victim of this imperial tyrant, did not in the least assuage him. The helot who is under the lash hates the helot who crouches by the master’s chair, more deeply than he hates the master. It is because of this unhappy law of nature that there are so few successful revolts among our social Pariahs. The well-constituted ruler of men divides his serfs into those who hold the whip and those who are whipped. Yes, he hated her the most. But how he hated them both! The heart of your true Pariah is a strange and dark place, concealing depths of rancorous animosity, which those who over-ride and discount such feelings rarely calculate upon. It is a mistake to assume that this curious rôle--the rôle of being a Pariah upon our planet--is one confined to the submerged, the outcast, the criminal. There are Pariahs in every village. It might be said that there are Pariahs in every family. The Pariah is one who is born with an innate inability to deal vigorously and effectively with his fellow animals. One sees these unfortunates every day--on the street, in the office, at the domestic hearth. One knows them by the queer look in their eyes; the look of animals who have been crushed rather than tamed. It is not only that they are weaker than the rest and less effectual. They are _different_. It is in their difference that the tragedy of their fate lies. Commonplace weaklings, who are not born Pariahs, have in their hearts the same standards, the same ambitions, the same prejudices, as those who rule the world. Such weaklings venerate, admire, and even _love_ the strong unscrupulous hands, the crafty unscrupulous brains, who push them to and fro like pawns. But the Pariah does not venerate the Power that oppresses him. He despises it and hates it. Long-accumulated loathing rankles in his heart. He is crushed but not won. He is penned, like a shorn sheep; but his thoughts “wander through Eternity.” And it is this difference, separating him from the rest, that excites such fury in those who oppress him. The healthy-minded prosperous man is irritated beyond endurance by this stranger within the gate--this incorrigible, ineffectual critic, cumbering his road. The mob, too, always ready, like spiteful, cawing rooks, to fall upon a wounded comrade, howl remorselessly for his destruction. The Pariah is seldom able to retain the sweetness of his natural affections.