Although the law makes her helpless in my hands, to me her defenselessness is her best defense." "Eugene, we have known each other all of our lives, and, although I have always regarded you as eccentric, I never saw you so completely off your balance before.

The idea of you, with your proud family name, your vast wealth in land and negroes, intending to marry one of them, is a mystery I cannot solve.

Do explain to me why you are going to take this extremely strange and foolish step." "You never saw Marie ?" "No; and I don't want to." "She is very beautiful.

In the North no one would suspect that she has one drop of negro blood in her veins, but here, where I am known, to marry her is to lose caste.

I could live with her, and not incur much if any social opprobrium.