Explore "God and the Man" by Robert W. Buchanan on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I was ever a simple man, little given to book-reading or analysing (as wise men love to do) their own thoughts; and when I led Richard Orchardson back to my cave, and gave him food to eat, I knew no more what spirit moved me than I know why the winds blow divers ways, and why stars ofttimes shoot from yonder sky. This only I remember, that my mood was so mingled and confused, that while I threw him food with one hand I could have struck him fiercely with the other.
This too was very strange to me then, though I understand it better now: that in proportion to the man's helplessness grew his mastery over me. In his very weakness lay his strength against me. When he sank down powerless before me, careless how I used him, indifferent alike to my wrath and to my compassion, I seemed to hear a voice crying in mine ear, 'Ah! coward! coward!' --but at every cry of this voice I steeled my heart the more.