Ah! plus que jamais aimons-nous,
Et vivons et mourons en des lieux si doux.
Les Amants Magnifiques.
The day when one who has been a scribbler begins to resort to dictation,
he loses half the pleasure of authorship. No one could desire, indeed, a
lovelier amanuensis than my grand-daughter Alice, who now sets down my
reminiscences, as I walk up and down the gallery of the long,
overshadowed house, smoking my pipe, and uttering what I hope will be
considered harmless gossip. Alice might justly blush, if I should make
her pen her own praises; so, while she takes pity on my failing eyesight
and my cheragra, I will respect her bashful fears.
We have had a house full of company, such as Carolina mansions glory in.
Carriages, filled with happy fair ones, under conduct of gay fellows
careering alongside, on young horses of great pedigree, have passed away
in such number that my plain, but spacious old tumble-down house seems
quite a solitude. Of white faces, there are none but Alice’s and mine;
for I count not the overseer and his swarming cottage, half a mile off,
just beyond the copse of chinquapins. The lawn around the dwelling was
laid out as I now behold it, about the year 1750. My father, who kept a
diary, has recorded the planting of those towering catalpas, which in
June were covered with tropical luxuriance of blossom, and now hang
heavy with the verdure of their broad, damp, succulent leaves. The oaks
were left from a primitive forest. Three lofty pines mark the spot for
the distant traveler. If I could but prevent unsightly gullies of
reddish earth, and could coax the scanty grass to mat itself English
fashion, I should envy no one his surroundings. But if we have not the
smooth, close-shaven green of Christ Church Meadow or Windsor Park, we
have a balmy atmosphere and a gorgeous Flora and vocal hawthorn
thickets, and dewy odors, such as are unknown in colder climes. Leaving
poetry out of the question, our mocking-bird (a misleading name) is not
inferior to the nightingale. He is also a songster of the night, and in
these regions continues his visits through a longer portion of the year
than his transatlantic rival. The mighty fragrance of our magnolia,
though oppressive near at hand, comes mitigated on the evening breeze
from the river lowlands. Our groves are draped with a thousand fantastic
hangings of vines and parasitic plants; and cool springs break forth in
more than one spot on this wide, half-tilled estate, which threatens,
year by year, to slip out of the family.
Ah me! When I look over my broad acres, some in rustling corn, some in
bristling wheat, and some in rank tobacco, omitting tracts of old-field
thickly set with volunteer pines, and prairies of stubbly broomsedge, I
find every part indissolubly connected with that relation of master and
servant, which is an abomination to Mr. Bull and Master Jonathan. I have
read the great writers on this head, from Clarkson down. I have
familiarized myself with the portrait of the slaveholder, strong in
colors of crimson, and illustrated with borders of whips and manacles.
But, for my life, I cannot see in yonder cheval-glass any resemblance.
Alice, dear child, does not discern in my face any decided lines of
truculence; and the very Africans, who have grown old beside me,
manifest no dread, but rather cling to my tottering form with a loving
regard that is almost filial. I turn my eyes to them, but they are not
like the pictures on certain books and hand-bills. Sometimes they are
hard-worked; so am I. Sometimes they have felt the burden of bad
seasons; so have I. But they are not haggard, they are not melancholy,
and they are not malignant. I see the smoke from their little hamlet of
clustered houses (for the negro loves his fire at all seasons;) I hear
the resonant laugh echoing among the rocks, and shall shortly hear the
banjo and the chorus. In bed and board they are better off than the
peasants I have seen in the Scotch Highlands, in Savoy, and in Normandy.
Of physical suffering they have less than soldiers and sailors. In
morals and religion they surpass their free brethren in Philadelphia and
New York. I wish in my heart they were all free—if it would make them
any happier. But I would no sooner cast them on the wide world, in their
actual condition, than I would disperse a family of babes, proclaim a
republic in Madagascar, or tear a tortoise from the bondage of his
shell. It was not I who stole them from Africa; they were born on the
same lands where we live together; and there is not a sunlight or a
shade falling on my lot, which does not in due proportion cheer or
sadden theirs. Let us call another case, Alice! This philanthropic
mystery is too deep for my decrepit wits.