You have attained that noble courage which dares to question the most received doctrines, and bring them to the test of truth. Who better than you can appreciate the falsehood and the force of the prejudices of opinion? Yet are you sure, madam, that even you are superior to them all? Far otherwise. Would I were! I am much too ignorant for such high such enviable perfection. But is it not possible that some of the most common, and if I dared I should say the most narrow, the most self-evident of these prejudices may sway and terrify you from the plain path of equity? Dare you look the world's unjust contumelies stedfastly in the face? Dare you answer for yourself that you will not shudder at the performance of what you cannot but acknowledge, nay have acknowledged to be an act of duty? I confess your preparation is alarming, and makes me half suspect myself, half desirous to retract all I have thought, all I have asserted! Yet I think I dare do whatever justice can require. You think--? Once more bring me to the proof. I feel a conscious [Again you make me a braggart.] a virtuous certainty. In opposition to the whole world, its prepossessions, reproofs, revilings, persecutions, and contempt? The picture is terrifying, but ought not to be, and I answer yes; in opposition to and in defiance of them all. Then--You are my wife! How? Be firm! Start not from the truth! You are my wife! Ask yourself the meaning of the word. Can set forms and ceremonies unite mind to mind? And if not they, what else? What but community of sentiments, similarity of principles, reciprocal sympathies, and an equal ardour for and love of truth? Can it be denied? It cannot. You are my wife, and I have a right to the privileges of a husband! A right? An absolute, an indefeasible right! You go too fast! They are your own principles: they are principles founded on avowed and indisputable truths. I claim justice from you! Clifton! Justice! This is wrong!--Surely it is wrong!--This cannot be! Instead of the chaste husband, such as better times and spirits of higher dignity have known, who comes with lips void of guile the rightful claimant of an innocent heart, in which suspicion never harboured, imagine me to be a traitorous wretch, who poorly seeks to gratify a momentary, a vile, a brutal passion! Imagine me, I say, such a creature if you can! Once I should have feared it; but you have taught my thoughts to soar above such vulgar terrors. My appeal is not to your passions, but your principles. Inspired by that refulgent ardour which animates you, with a noble enthusiasm you have yourself bid me put you to the proof. You cannot, will not, dare not be unjust!