When one man has been under very remarkable obligations to another, with whom he subsequently quarrels, a common sense of decency, as it were, makes … - William Makepeace Thackeray

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When one man has been under very remarkable obligations to another, with whom he subsequently quarrels, a common sense of decency, as it were, makes of the former a much severer enemy than a mere stranger would be. To account for your own hard-heartedness and ingratitude in such a case, you are bound to prove the other party's crime. It is not that you are selfish, brutal, and angry at the failure of a speculation — no, no — it is that your partner has led you into it by the basest treachery and with the most sinister motives. From a mere sense of consistency, a persecutor is bound to show that the fallen man is a villain — otherwise he, the persecutor, is a wretch himself.