Quotation from: Villette

Written by: Charlotte Bronte


There are people whom a lowered position degrades morally, to whom
loss of connection costs loss of self-respect: are not these justified
in placing the highest value on that station and association which is
their safeguard from debasement? If a man feels that he would become
contemptible in his own eyes were it generally known that his ancestry
were simple and not gentle, poor and not rich, workers and not
capitalists, would it be right severely to blame him for keeping these
fatal facts out of sight--for starting, trembling, quailing at the
chance which threatens exposure? The longer we live, the more out
experience widens; the less prone are we to judge our neighbour's
conduct, to question the world's wisdom: wherever an accumulation of
small defences is found, whether surrounding the prude's virtue or the
man of the world's respectability, there, be sure, it is needed.

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