Must we then never dare to counteract mistake? Must mind, though
enlightened by truth, submit to be the eternal slave of error?--What is
there that is thus dreadful, madam, in the curse of prejudice? Have not
the greatest and the wisest of mankind been cursed by ignorance?

It is not the curse itself that is terrible, but the torture of the
person's mind by whom it is uttered!--Nor is it the torture of a
minute, or a day, but of years!--His child, his beloved child, on whom
his hopes and heart were fixed, to whom he looked for all the bliss of
filial obedience, all the energies of virtue, and all the effusions of
affection, to see himself deserted by her, unfeelingly deserted,
plunged in sorrows unutterable, eternally dishonoured, the index and
the bye-word of scandal, scoffed at for the fault of her whom his fond
and fatherly reveries had painted faultless, whispered out of society
because of the shame of her in whom he gloried, and I this child!

Were the conflict what your imagination has figured it, madam, your
terrors would be just--But I have thought deeply on it, and know that
your very virtues misguide you. It would not be torture, nor would it
be eternal--On the contrary, madam, I, poor as I am in the esteem of an
arrogant world, I proudly affirm it would be the less and not the
greater evil.

You mistake!--Indeed, Frank, you mistake!--The fear of poverty, the
sneers of the world, ignominy itself, were the pain inflicted but
confined to me, I would despise. But to stretch my father upon the
rack, and with him every creature that loves me, even you yourself!--It
must not be!--It must not be!