A MORAL POINTED.
A Problem for the Phrenologists--"Self-Preservation is [said to be]
the First Law of Life"--A Mooted Question put at Rest--Experiments in
Metaphysics--An Anecdote Dealing with the Characteristics of some
People--Another--Peculiarities of the Caucasian--Ditto of the
African--An "Awakening" among the Children of the New Abrahamic
Covenant--"Brudder Jones's Preechin'"--What it Wrought--Unpleasant
Truths--Sins of Omission and Commission--The Pale-Faced Settlers in
Distress--An "Artifice" of Retrenchment--Eloquent
Discourse--Nineteenthly, and what followed--K. K. K.
_redivivus_--"Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys are Marching, etc."--A
Break for Tall Timber--The Best Time on Record.
Whether it is located in the brain, or has its seat in that sentient organ
of the body which physiologists indicate as the seat of life, we are left
to conjecture; but it is certain that there exists somewhere in the
anatomy of man an essence, or attribute, which, under certain outward
conditions, becomes the tyrant of his movements, and renders the
disposition to cultivate acquaintance with other vistas a passion too
strong to be resisted. Philosophers tell us that "self-preservation is the
first law of life," but their efforts to connect this postulate with some
rational conclusion deduced from the organism of the animal under
discussion, is so egregiously wanting in the elements of a sound
syllogism, that we are led to believe that it has no foundation in fact,
and that they only meant to say that where the emotion denominated _fear_
assumes the reigns of physical government, an open road and fair play are
all that is required to render the proposed achievement a success. It is
useless to tell us that men, adopting the improved modes of destroying
life which this Christian age has developed, stand up to explode missiles
at each other under the persuasion that they are doing something that will
tend to preserve life; or, if that were not false doctrine, who that ever
attended one of these tournaments of bad shooting is unable to testify to
the overpowering conviction that the parties thereto would have enjoyed
themselves better in a free exercise of their limbs--
"Over the meadows and far away."
Having examined into the philosophy of this question, with a view solely
of removing certain doubts inherited from the professions of a warlike
ancestry, and, predisposed to err in the opposite direction, we have
arrived at the conclusion, _once for all_, that the "git up and git"
tendencies of mankind, when the proper incentives are at hand, are as
absolutely irresistible as the water-fall at Niagara, and as necessary to
the happiness of the subject as the barriers that separate him from his
mother-in-law. Having solved this problem, and satisfied ourselves of the
universality of its conditions, it next occurred to us to examine its
terms as applicable to the different races of men. And here we found that
while all races are equally gifted in this respect, yet its elementary
conditions are not always the same in different branches of the Adamic
tree. Taking the extremes in color as the representatives of a fair
contrast in other respects, we have confined our investigations to the
white and black races,--and with a view to our own profit, and to being
fully comprehended by the reader,--these races as they exist on our own
shores. Without any reference whatever to the vain science known as
metaphysics, our conclusions are as follows: With the white man this
element of his being is less on the surface, and he wears it uneasily, as
though it were foreign to his genius, and at the same time a curb on his
actions. With the other it is a loose-fitting garment, worn on the
outside, and he seems rather pleased than otherwise that he is thus
rendered a spectacle to his fellow-men. The white man attempts to conceal
it, and above all would persuade himself that it is an illusion of the
fancy. The black, contrariwise, has no qualms of conscience on the
subject, and if pressed for argument, might adduce it as a crowning
evidence of his homogeneity.
Two incidents have come under our notice which set forth this distinction
more forcibly than any form of words we could employ. A farmer living in
the back country, near the city of Shreveport, brought his son--a youth
whose adolescency would hardly have escaped the notice of strangers--to
that thriving burg to view the sights. The steamboat feature was down in
the programme, of course, and reaching the wharf, the youngster was
commissioned to go aboard and obtain the exact "geography" of "the thing."
This he proceeded to do with all haste, exploring the quarter-deck,
rummaging through the cabins, and finally bringing up before the engine
with a manner that said as plainly as words, "the thing is inconceivable."
The engineer, standing not far off, observed this movement, and, probably
without contemplating such serious results, stepped briskly forward and
touched the safety-valve. Startled beyond all "fancy fathoms" by the
earthquake of sound, "country" accomplished a rapid retrograde movement,
which soon involved him in conflict with the waves, whence, floundering
and spluttering, after the fashion of a porpoise, and having absorbed a
barrel or more of river water, he was with difficulty rescued. Being
dragged ashore, and before the agonies of drowning had fairly relinquished
his frame, a sympathizing bystander asked if he had been much scared. His
reply was characteristic of the Caucasian blood, "No-o-o (splutter); I've
(splutter) seen the critters afore."
Not many hundred miles north of the city of Galveston, while the Texas
Central Railroad was in course of construction, and at a little town
which formed its northern terminus for the time being, occurred the
following:
Two individuals of African lineage, hailing from the upper districts of
the State, who had never seen an "ingine," but had long promised
themselves that felicity, stood at the depot awaiting with some impatience
the arrival of the evening train. Standing hand in hand, and conversing
excitedly on the topic uppermost in their minds, their _outre_ appearance,
coupled with the exceeding verdancy of some of their observations, became
the subject of attention, and then of amused remark from the bystanders.
This they were unable to appreciate for various reasons, and soon the
appearance of the winged monster around a neighboring curve, with
appalling and most unpreconceived suddenness, took away their breaths and
rocked their bodies with shivers of dread. Their first impulse was to
dismiss their corner of the meeting and pass to the rear; but, looking
around upon the broadly smiling crowd, they were reassured for the moment,
and each grasping the other's horny palm with a grip which evinced their
respective determinations not to be left, whatever might happen, they
stood hearkening to the thunderous echoes, and noting with special wonder
the cow-catching and other aggressive features of the steadily approaching
monster. It had now stolen by slow degrees to within twenty feet of the
spot which they occupied, and the whistle breaking into a peculiarly loud
accompaniment to the huff--huff--huff of the bellowing engine, the
expression, "Dar, she's busted!" startled even the man of iron at the
throttle-valve, and prefacing the exertion with a ten-feet leap into the
air, the panic-stricken darkies broke across the landscape with a yearning
desire for tall timber that was eloquently depicted on every motion of the
supple limbs, and in each sway of the backward leant and pendulous
cerebellums. The cheers of the crowd, and a few extra flourishes on the
big horn, served to augment their weight of conviction, and buckling to
their labor with saw-mill regularity of stroke, and a settled
determination not to be overtaken by slower time, they soon blended with
the verge of the horizon, and took that leap into space which rescues them
from all further connection with this narrative.
So thin is the partition wall that separates the real from the ideal with
these beings, that they continually advertise themselves for a scare, and
should they by any accident be deprived of their weekly supply of the
element, loss of appetite and other serious bodily symptoms would
undoubtedly ensue.
We have volunteered these remarks and illustrations, pertaining to the
philosophy of this question, with a view of introducing the following
occurrence:
In that portion of the State of Mississippi where the pumpkins grow
largest, and the mosquitoes are supplied with blood-letting apparatus at
both extremities, and at about that period of _post bellum_ history when
the K. K. K. rabies had taken strongest hold upon the chivalry of the
neighboring hills and valleys, a great "awakening" occurred among the
children of the new Abrahamic covenant. In other words, and to quote the
language of one of the communicants, "a ole fashyun'd whoopin', bumpin',
jumpin,' tumblin,' rousation of de dry bones had superseemed froo de
inscroomentality of Brudder Jones's preechin'." For a period of six weeks
the lame, halt, and blind of the neighboring plantations had been led into
the troubled waters with manifestations of relief that the most skeptical
would hardly question, and still, to quote further, "Zion was a wavin',
and de onregenerate milyums flockin' abode of de 'gospil car.'" Indeed,
the "orfumdoxeky of de new doctorin'" was having its effect everywhere,
and old soggy timber that had resisted the improvements in wedges for half
a century went to atoms under the vigorous mauling of "Brudder Jones." No
sooner had one squad of penitents been "bumped" through and converted into
stools for the sisters, than the raw material for another and larger was
at hand, and "swingin', whoopin', rollin'," the "thing" held right on its
course over the rheumatic toes of the aged and infirm, and into the
combative "buzzums" of the young, vigorous, and
"kick-him-hard-and-let-him-go."
But though nothing could be more delightful to the writer than to continue
the narrative in this strain, recording only the triumphs of "suvverin
grace," and concerning himself most with the aesthetic beauties of its
"sperimental terms," yet duty compels him to state that while Brother
Jones and his militant hosts were pressing hard upon the enemy from their
entrenched position, their campaign was far from embodying all the gospel
conditions. Though we could wish the sentence blotted out after we had
written it, it behooves us to say, in plain words, that sins both of
omission and commission soiled their robes, and wrought, or should have
done so, a languishing effect on their hosannas. The grassy cotton-fields
and rioting pumpkin vines testified to the former, while the _commission_
department of the offence, with such a paraphrase of that word as may be
effected by a slight transposition of accent, was directed with most fatal
precision of aim at the henneries and "piggeries" of the neighboring white
trash. So constant and regular were their visits to the haunts of the
feathered domestics, that the fashion of noting absentees from roll-call
became obsolete; and a full chorus of grunts was so foreign to the morning
habits of the pig-pen, that such an outburst in that quarter must have
affected the nerves of the strongest. Indeed, that division of the
pale-faced settlers whose springtime felicity depended largely on this
class of commissaries, had arrived at such a desperate strait that, in
convention assembled, it was resolved to retrench, and, if we must write
it, their "artifice" of retrenchment was levelled at Brother Jones and his
"band of robbers," as they were politely termed. The scheme "hit upon,"
and the success which followed it, may be gathered from the following
scene:
That period of the night equally removed from the departed and the coming
day, had accomplished its fiftieth revolution, and now hung fire over the
eighteenthly of the most eloquent discourse that was ever flattened out
over the crowns of an equal proportion of unsuspecting listeners for the
same number of times. The cries of the stricken arose from every quarter
of the vast audience, and hundreds of the slain had submitted to that
elongating process by which their contorted frames were made to do duty
for the greatest number of "squatter sovereigns." One brother arose to
testify, in a series of whoops, to the pungency of "de brudder's
doctorin'," and immediately went to bed to a mass of excruciating hurts on
the outskirts of the assembly. A sister, racked by the "alloverishes," and
knowing the penalty for interrupting the services at this interesting
stage, screamed out in affright, and reaching that point over a causeway
of the best Boston built brogans, was content to embrace her toes around a
neighboring sycamore. Nineteenthly stood up for duty,--arranged its
cravat,--tip-toed,--and lo! instead of a chorus of grunts, a chorus of
gasps, full-chested, deep drawn, and suffocating. There he stood, or
rather towered, just where the rays of light fell strongest, garbed in
funereal black, and full twelve feet from crown to sole.[B] Steadying
himself after an awkward, but ghostlily impressive bow, there issued from
that portion of his corporeal frame which might be supposed to represent
the mean in a mathematical estimate of his inches, the following
announcement: "I am a Ku-Klux!" and then from the upper extreme the
following confirmation of this report: "I have just forded the
Tallahatchie River, and am the advance guard of the old original whoopers,
surnamed K. K. K.;" and then from mean and extreme, in dismal chorus,
"Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching, etc."
Nothing could be further from our purpose than to injure that excellent
person, either in the eyes of his contemporaries or of that posterity
which he was wont to invoke so confidently from the more thrilling
promontories of his discourse; but a decent regard for the "proprieties"
of this narrative compels us to state that the reverend orator observing,
or fancying that he observed, something mandatory, and withal personal in
the terms of this refrain, at once inaugurated the "tramp" exercise over
the heads of the assembly, and reaching _terra firma_, one mile from the
point of embarkation, and seeing nothing in the homogeneity of a mob
particularly attractive to a man of genius, proceeded to divest himself of
his surroundings in the best executed "lonesome" since the days of
Ahimaaz, the son of Zadok. This movement, moreover, possessed a striking
appropriateness, inasmuch as it rendered him _practically_ the leader of
his flock, and perhaps on no former occasion of his extended ministry did
he ever discharge the duties of the "relation" with the same yearning
solicitude for the success of the issue, even admitting, in extenuation of
the past, that the most lukewarm of his constituency did their whole duty
on this memorable occasion. As the writer has never been successful at
equating distances since he was gobbled by the greyhound in connection
with his more legitimate prey in the good old days of "academicia," he
declines to state just how many furlongs the panic-stricken multitude had
traversed, when a gloaming of red in the east warned them that they had
nothing further to fear from the "nocturnal beasts," who had obtruded
their heathenish "doxullumgy" on the late exercises, and will not commit
himself as to the sequel, further than to say that the results of the
"great awakening" were soon after visible in a certain rejoicing tendency
of the cotton plant and pumpkin vine of that fertile region.