"Don't suppose that I think you are right, Tom, or that I bow to your will. I despise the feelings you have shown in speaking to Philip - I detest your insulting unmanly allusions to his deformity. You have been reproaching people all your life - you have always been sure you yourself are right: it is because you have not a mind large enough to see that there is anything better than your own conduct and your own petty aims. [...] I don't want to defend myself -" said Maggie, still with vehemence: "I know I have been wrong - often, continually. But yet, sometimes when I have done wrong, it has been because I have feeling that you would be the better for if you had them. If you were in fault ever - if you had done anything very wrong, I should be sorry for the pain it brought you - I should not want punishment to be heaped on you. But you have always enjoyed punishing me - you have always been hard and cruel to me - even when I was a little girl, and always loved you better that any one else in the world, you would let me go crying to bed without forgiving me. You have no pity - you have no sense of your own imperfections and your own sins. It is a sin to be hard - it is not fitting for a mortal - for a Christian. You are nothing but a Pharisee. You thank God for nothing but your own virtues - you think they are great enough to win you everything else. You have not even a vision of feelings by the side of which your shining virtues are mere darkness! [...] You boast of your virtues as if they purchased you a right to be cruel and unmanly as you've been today. Don't suppose I would give up Philip Wakem in obedience to you. The deformity you insult would make me cling to him and care for him the more."