If you want me to kneel, I'll kneel. If you want me to beg, I am begging now. We've already lost enough to make us poor. But if it goes on for much longer, there are some among us facing ruin. Please. End it.
I won't say I feel no pity, because I do. But you have not only tried to get the better of me. You and Mrs. Morris have snubbed and belittled my wife. How could I allow that to go unpunished? I don't suggest that you men committed every crime that I'm avenging here. But to employ a modern phrase, I'm afraid you must face the music.
Charity has two functions in our world, my dear. The first is to raise funds for the less fortunate, which is wholly good. The second is to provide a ladder for people to climb into society who do not belong there.
Before you think me a simpleton, I am well aware that Mrs. Russell is using the charity ladder to climb into the ballrooms of New York. I can still be grateful she chose my charity to be that ladder.
Namely, Lewis Latimer, a colored inventor. He created a better carbon filament. That's the thing in the bulb that helps keep the lights on, so to speak.
