“I have come to believe that to know human nature—at least to know it as its worst—one must be the victim of some discreditable misfortune in a small community. Moral cowardice, ingratitude, the greed which is ready to take advantage of some one unable to make an effective protest, the gratuitous insults offered the 'under dog' because he is helpless to fight back—he discovers it all, and when all is done he has little faith in human nature left.
“This experience I had at your hands, to the last ounce. I know the ‘friendship’ that couldn’t 'stand the gaff' of public opinion, the ingratitude that makes no count of personal sacrifice, the rapacity that takes it to the border of dishonesty to attain its end. Yet, curiously enough, after the lapse of years these things shrink into comparative insignificance beside the uncalled for insolence, unwarranted affronts, which were offered me by many of you with whom I had not even a speaking acquaintance.
“My friendlessness aroused no pity in your hearts; I was only an unresisting target at which to throw a convenient stone. For years I stood out in the open, as it were, with the storms to whip the life out of me, and not one of you offered me a cloak.
“Upon any nature this experience would have had its effect—most women, I think, it would have crushed. In me it developed traits that in other circumstances might always have lain dormant. Along with a pride that was tremendous, it aroused a desire for revenge that was savage in its ferocity. I’ve lived for some such hour as this—worked, and sacrificed my happiness for it.
“If it could have been of my own planning I could not have conceived of a more gratifying situation than this.
“I know how much my decision means to you; I know that there isn’t one here who would not be affected directly or indirectly by the collapse of this project; that it will take years for you to get back even to the position you were in when you came, quite as well as I realize that its completion would put you on your feet.”
She stopped again while they waited for her to go on in a silence that was painful.
“When I’ve visualized 'The Day' in my waking dreams, I’ve wondered if I should weaken and forgive my enemies as they always do in books—if any argument could move me to relent—if any impulse would soften me toward you—if I might not even pity you.
“One never knows, but I thought not. And I was right. The desperation of your situation isn’t the sort of pathos that appeals to me. I find that in my nature there is nothing ‘noble’ that pleads for you. I neither pity nor forgive you.
“Yet this moment is a disappointment. Instead of the sweetness of revenge, I feel only indifference, for I realize as never before how I magnified your importance, that I looked at you through the wrong end of the telescope; and along with my apathy is a feeling of dismay that I have spent all these years working to retaliate upon foes that are not worth what it has cost. The worst thing one could wish you is to be yourselves, for there isn’t one among you who has the qualities to lift him above his present level of mediocrity.”