It is no point of morals; both are wrong.

Either way this step-child of Providence must fall; which shall he choose, by doing or not doing ?' 'Fall, then, is what I would say,' replied Nance.

'Fall where you will, but do it! For O, Mr.Archer,' she continued, stooping to her work, 'you that are good and kind, and so wise, it doth sometimes go against my heart to see you live on here like a sheep in a turnip-field! If you were braver--' and here she paused, conscience-smitten.
'Do I, indeed, lack courage ?' inquired Mr.Archer of himself.

'Courage, the footstool of the virtues, upon which they stand?
Courage, that a poor private carrying a musket has to spare of; that does not fail a weasel or a rat; that is a brutish faculty?
I to fail there, I wonder?
But what is courage, then?
The constancy to endure oneself or to see others suffer?
The itch of ill-advised activity: mere shuttle-wittedness, or to be still and patient?
To inquire of the significance of words is to rob ourselves of what we seem to know, and yet, of all things, certainly to stand still is the least heroic.
Nance,' he said, 'did you ever hear of _Hamlet_ ?' 'Never,' said Nance.
''Tis an old play,' returned Mr.Archer, 'and frequently enacted.

This while I have been talking Hamlet.