yield themselves up to that sort of power quickly enough, and
immolate themselves _pro bono publico_ by the million. And what's
the bonum publicum but a mob power? Why can't they submit to a bit of
healthy individual authority? The fool would die, without me: just as
that fool Jim will die in hysterics one day. Why does he last so long!

"Tanny's the same. She does nothing really but resist me: my authority,
or my influence, or just ME. At the bottom of her heart she just blindly
and persistently opposes me. God knows what it is she opposes: just me
myself. She thinks I want her to submit to me. So I do, in a measure
natural to our two selves. Somewhere, she ought to submit to me. But
they all prefer to kick against the pricks. Not that THEY get many
pricks. I get them. Damn them all, why don't I leave them alone? They
only grin and feel triumphant when they've insulted one and punched one
in the wind.

"This Aaron will do just the same. I like him, and he ought to like me.
And he'll be another Jim: he WILL like me, if he can knock the wind out
of me. A lot of little Stavrogins coming up to whisper affectionately,
and biting one's ear.

"But anyhow I can soon see the last of this chap: and him the last of
all the rest. I'll be damned for ever if I see their Jims and Roberts
and Julias and Scotts any more. Let them dance round their insipid
hell-broth. Thin tack it is.

"There's a whole world besides this little gang of Europeans. Except,
dear God, that they've exterminated all the peoples worth knowing. I
can't do with folk who teem by the billion, like the Chinese and Japs
and orientals altogether. Only vermin teem by the billion. Higher types
breed slower. I would have loved the Aztecs and the Red Indians. I KNOW
they hold the element in life which I am looking for--they had living
pride. Not like the flea-bitten Asiatics--even niggers are better than
Asiatics, though they are wallowers--the American races--and the South
Sea Islanders--the Marquesans, the Maori blood. That was the true blood.
It wasn't frightened. All the rest are craven--Europeans, Asiatics,
Africans--everyone at his own individual quick craven and cringing: only
conceited in the mass, the mob. How I hate them: the mass-bullies, the
individual Judases.

"Well, if one will be a Jesus he must expect his Judas. That's why
Abraham Lincoln gets shot. A Jesus makes a Judas inevitable. A man
should remain himself, not try to spread himself over humani