At eight o'clock the ballroom was a blaze of light and the guests had
begun to assemble; for there was a literary programme and some routine
business of the society to be gone through with before the dancing.
A black servant in evening dress waited at the door and directed the
guests to the dressing-rooms.
The occasion was long memorable among the colored people of the city;
not alone for the dress and display, but for the high average of
intelligence and culture that distinguished the gathering as a whole.
There were a number of school-teachers, several young doctors, three or
four lawyers, some professional singers, an editor, a lieutenant in
the United States army spending his furlough in the city, and others in
various polite callings; these were colored, though most of them would
not have attracted even a casual glance because of any marked difference
from white people. Most of the ladies were in evening costume, and dress
coats and dancing-pumps were the rule among the men. A band of string
music, stationed in an alcove behind a row of palms, played popular airs
while the guests were gathering.
The dancing began at half past nine. At eleven o'clock supper was
served. Mr. Ryder had left the ballroom some little time before the
intermission, but reappeared at the supper-table. The spread was worthy
of the occasion, and the guests did full justice to it. When the coffee
had been served, the toastmaster, Mr. Solomon Sadler, rapped for order.
He made a brief introductory speech, complimenting host and guests,
and then presented in their order the toasts of the evening. They were
responded to with a very fair display of after-dinner wit.
"The last toast," said the toast-master, when he reached the end of the
list, "is one which must appeal to us all. There is no one of us of the
sterner sex who is not at some time dependent upon woman,--in infancy
for protection, in manhood for companionship, in old age for care and
comforting. Our good host has been trying to live alone, but the fair
faces I see around me to-night prove that he too is largely dependent
upon the gentler sex for most that makes life worth living,--the society
and love of friends,--and rumor is at fault if he does not soon yield
entire subjection to one of them. Mr. Ryder will now respond to the
toast,--The Ladies."
There was a pensive look in Mr. Ryder's eyes as he took the floor and
adjusted his eyeglasses. He began by speaking of woman as the gift of
Heaven to man, and after some general observations on the relations of
the sexes he said: "But perhaps the quality which most distinguishes
woman is her fidelity and devotion to those she loves. History is full
of examples, but has recorded none more striking than one which only
to-day came under my notice."
He then related, simply but effectively, the story told by his visitor
of the afternoon. He told it in the same soft dialect, which came
readily to his lips, while the company listened attentively and
sympathetically. For the story had awakened a responsive thrill in many
hearts. There were some present who had seen, and others who had heard
their fathers and grandfathers tell, the wrongs and sufferings of this
past generation, and all of them still felt, in their darker moments,
the shadow hanging over them. Mr. Ryder went on:--
"Such devotion and such confidence are rare even among women. There are
many who would have searched a year, some who would have waited five
years, a few who might have hoped ten years; but for twenty-five years
this woman has retained her affection for and her faith in a man she has
not seen or heard of in all that time.
"She came to me to-day in the hope that I might be able to help her find
this long-lost husband. And when she was gone I gave my fancy rein, and
imagined a case I will put to you.
"Suppose that this husband, soon after his escape, had learned that
his wife had been sold away, and that such inquiries as he could make
brought no information of her whereabouts. Suppose that he was young,
and she much older than he; that he was light, and she was black; that
their marriage was a slave marriage, and legally binding only if they
chose to make it so after the war. Suppose, too, that he made his way
to the North, as some of us have done, and there, where he had larger
opportunities, had improved them, and had in the course of all these
years grown to be as different from the ignorant boy who ran away from
fear of slavery as the day is from the night. Suppose, even, that he
had qualified himself, by industry, by thrift, and by study, to win the
friendship and be considered worthy the society of such people as these
I see around me to-night, gracing my board and filling my heart with
gladness; for I am old enough to remember the day when such a gathering
would not have been possible in this land. Suppose, too, that, as
the years went by, this man's memory of the past grew more and more
indistinct, until at last it was rarely, except in his dreams, that any
image of this bygone period rose before his mind. And then suppose that
accident should bring to his knowledge the fact that the wife of his
youth, the wife he had left behind him,--not one who had walked by his
side and kept pace with him in his upward struggle, but one upon whom
advancing years and a laborious life had set their mark,--was alive
and seeking him, but that he was absolutely safe from recognition or
discovery, unless he chose to reveal himself. My friends, what would
the man do? I will suppose that he was one who loved honor, and tried
to deal justly with all men. I will even carry the case further, and
suppose that perhaps he had set his heart upon another, whom he had
hoped to call his own. What would he do, or rather what ought he to do,
in such a crisis of a lifetime?
"It seemed to me that he might hesitate, and I imagined that I was an
old friend, a near friend, and that he had come to me for advice; and
I argued the case with him. I tried to discuss it impartially. After we
had looked upon the matter from every point of view, I said to him, in
words that we all know:
'This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.'