—And advocates No longer Farinacci, let us add, If I one more time fly from point proposed! So, Vindicatio—here begins the speech! Honoris causa; thus we make our stand: Honor in us had injury, we prove. Or if we fail to prove such injury More than misprision of the fact,—what then? It is enough, authorities declare, If the result, the deed in question now, Be caused by confidence that injury Is veritable and no figment: since, What, though proved fancy afterward, seemed fact At the time, they argue shall excuse result. That which we do, persuaded of good cause For what we do, hold justifiable!— So casuists bid: man, bound to do his best, They would not have him leave that best undone And mean to do his worst,—though fuller light Show best was worst and worst would have been best. Act by the present light!—they ask of man. Ultra quod hic non agitur, besides It is not anyway our business here, De probatione adulterii, To prove what we thought crime was crime indeed, Ad irrogandam pœnam, and require Its punishment: such nowise do we seek: Sed ad effectum, but 't is our concern, Excusandi, here to simply find excuse, Occisorem, for who did the killing-work, Et ad illius defensionem, (mark The difference) and defend the man, just that! Quo casu levior probatio Exuberaret, to which end far lighter proof Suffices than the prior case would claim: It should be always harder to convict, In short, than to establish innocence. Therefore we shall demonstrate first of all That Honor is a gift of God to man Precious beyond compare: which natural sense Of human rectitude and purity,— Which white, man's soul is born with,—brooks no touch: Therefore, the sensitivest spot of all, Wounded by any wafture breathed from black, Is—honor within honor, like the eye Centred i' the ball—the honor of our wife. Touch us o' the pupil of our honor, then, Not actually,—since so you slay outright,— But by a gesture simulating touch, Presumable mere menace of such taint,— This were our warrant for eruptive ire "To whose dominion I impose no end."