Now, _I_ have the rare chance of acting otherwise; I
can show the world from the very first that I act from principle,
and from principle only. I can say to it in effect, 'See, here is
the man of my choice, the man I love, truly, and purely, the man
any one of you would willingly have seen offering himself in lawful
marriage to your own daughters. If I would, I might go the beaten
way you prescribe, and marry him legally. But of my own free will
I disdain that degradation; I choose rather to be free. No fear of
your scorn, no dread of your bigotry, no shrinking at your cruelty,
shall prevent me from following the thorny path I know to be the
right one. I seek no temporal end. I will not prove false to the
future of my kind in order to protect myself from your hateful
indignities. I know on what vile foundations your temple of
wedlock is based and built, what pitiable victims languish and die
in its sickening vaults; and I will not consent to enter it. Here,
of my own free will, I take my stand for the right, and refuse your
sanctions! No woman that I know of has ever yet done that.
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