and
apology. True virtue shines by its own light, and needs no art to set it off.
You have the first principles of morality as yet to learn.
    And can you imagine, that the most upright conduct, is always superior to
the danger of ambiguity?
    Exactly so. Virtue, sir, consists in actions, and not in words. The good man
and the bad, are characters precisely opposite, not characters distinguished
from each other by imperceptible shades. The Providence that rules us all, has
not permitted us to be left without a clue in the most important of all
questions. Eloquence may seek to confound it; but it shall be my care to avoid
its deceptive influence. I do not wish to have my understanding perverted, and
all the differences of things concealed from my apprehension.
    Madam, madam! It would be impossible for you to hold this language, if you
had not always lived in this obscure retreat, if you had ever been conversant
with the passions and institutions of men.
    It may be so. And, if that be the case, I have great reason to be thankful
to my God, who has thus enabled me, to preserve the innocence of my heart, and
the integrity of my understanding.
    Can you believe then, that ignorance is the only, or the safest,
preservative of integrity?
    Sir, I told you at first, and I repeat to you again, that all your
declamation is in vain. I wish you would have saved me and yourself, that pain
which is the only thing that can possibly result from it. But let us suppose
that virtue could ever be the equivocal thing you would have me believe. Is it
possible, if you had been honest, that you would not have acquainted me with
your story? Is it possible, that you would have left me to have been informed of
it by a mere accident, and with all the shocking aggravations you well knew that
accident would give it? Is it possible you should have violated the most sacred
of all trusts, and have led me unknowingly to admit to the intercourse of my
children, a character, which if, as you pretend, it is substantially honest, you
cannot deny to be blasted and branded in the face of the whole world? Go, sir, I
despise you. You are a monster, and not a man. I cannot tell whether my personal
situation misleads me, but, to my thinking, this last action of yours is worse
than all the rest. Nature has constituted me the protector of my children. I
shall always remember