"We met Shaler in a great forlorn tavern at Mantonville, quite by
chance. We hadn't been in the house half an hour before Harry and he
found each other out. I had just had time to give some orders
up-stairs for making my room a little habitable,--for we were going to
pass a day or two there,--and came down to look about me below. There
I find Harry walking up and down the breezy entry with a stately
stranger, engaged in earnest and intimate conversation. Presently he
comes to ask me if it would be agreeable to me to have our seats at
the table taken near Mr. Charles Shaler's, who, it seemed, was by two
days more at home than we were. Of course it was agreeable to me in
that populous No Man's Land to sit near any one who had a name to be
called by. And the name was not a new one. I had never seen Charles
Shaler,--Colonel Shaler, as he is called,--of Metapora; but I had
heard a great deal of him, for he is own cousin to the Harveys. I felt
sure that this was the man. His appearance agreed perfectly with the
description given me, and then Harry's foregathering with him so
instinctively was a proof in itself. I found him very agreeable that
day at dinner, though, and continued to find him so, except when he
mounted his hobby; then he was insupportable. There's no arguing with
enthusiasts. They are lifted up into a sphere entirely above that of
reason. And when they have persuaded themselves that the matter they
have run wild upon is a religious one, they're wrapped in such a
panoply of self-righteousness that there's no hitting them anywhere.
You may _demonstrate_ to such a man as Shaler the absurdity, the
impracticability, of his schemes: he seems to think he's done his
part in laying them before you; he doesn't even show you the attention
to be ruffled by your refutation, but listens with a complacent
politeness that is half-way to an affront. However, I had my little
occupations, and he and Harry used to found Utopias together to their
own complete satisfaction, whatever good the world may derive from
their visions.--Does Shaler ever come here now?"
"From time to time he appears, unlocks the old house, and walks
through the empty rooms."
"I hear that his plantation is going to ruin."
"Yes; it is a melancholy sight."
"We passed by it on our way here from Westlake's. But we saw only the
fine trees on the border. We did not enter. Why doesn't he sell it,
let it, have it occupied by some one who might get a support from it?
Or does he carry his respect for liberty so far that he thinks it a
sin for a man to compel the earth to supply his needs?"
"He is, as you say, an enthusiast. He regards the culture of the earth
as a religious work, and thinks it sacrilege to carry it on in the
frantic pursuit of exorbitant gain, watering the innocent soil with
tears and the painful sweat of unrewarded labor. But he has not given
up the hope of returning."
"What! does he repent his rashness already?"
"No; but he loves his native State, and believes in it."
"Nobody interferes with Harvey; nobody objects to his reforms," said
the Doctor, after a little silence.
"Because they lead to nothing," answered Harry.
"They have led to giving him a splendid income, and to giving his
people as much comfort as they can appreciate, and as much instruction
as they can profit by. Harvey is really a religious man. He regards
his relation to his slaves as a providential one, and does not believe
he has a right to break it off violently, as Shaler has done."
I had all along tried, in these discussions, to maintain an impartial
tone, confining myself to a simple statement of facts, and leaving the
controversy to the Doctor and Harry; but I had been gradually losing
my coolness, and found myself more and more drawn to take a side. The
repetition of this reflection upon Shaler was more than I could bear.
"There is certainly," I said, "a wide difference between Shaler's view
of the relation of the master to his laborers and Harvey's. Shaler
believed that these dependent beings were a charge intrusted to him by
their Maker and his. As unto him more had been given than unto them,
of him, he knew, more would be required. Harvey supposes that these
inferior creatures have been given to him for his use. His part is to
supply them with sustenance, and to show them so much of kindness and
indulgence as is consistent with keeping them in the condition to
which they have been called; theirs is to serve him with all their
soul and all their strength, to render him an unqualified obedience,
to subordinate even the most sacred ties of nature to their attachment
to him. Here is, indeed, no danger to slavery. Ameliorations, under
such conditions, fortify instead of undermining it. The sight of an
apparent well-being in this state pacifies uneasy consciences in the
master-class; while the slave, subjugated by ideas instilled from
infancy, not less than by the inexorable material force which incloses
him, finds even his own conscience enlisted in his oppressor's
service, steeled and armed against himself."
"You wrong Frank Harvey, if you suppose he allows his slaves a mere
animal support; he has them taught what is needful for them to know."
"He has them taught just so much as shall increase their usefulness to
him, without giving them a dangerous self-reliance."
"Precisely, so far as secular knowledge is concerned. And it is
possible he may be right in view of their interests as well as of his
own. But he allows them religious instruction to any extent,--takes
care that they have it."
"The religious instruction allowed by Harvey, and by other humane
slaveholders who maintain the lawfulness of slavery, inculcates the
service of the earthly master as the fulfilment of the practical
service of God on earth. For the rest, the slaves are allowed to look
forward to another world, to which this life is a sorrowful
passage,--whose toils, pains, and privations, however unnecessary and
resultless, are, if only passively accepted, to be compensated by
proportionate enjoyments."
"This constitutes, then, the whole of the much talked-of religion of
your negro Christians?"
"Of too many; but the promise, 'Ask, and ye shall receive,' was made
to them as to all. Even to the slave-cabin has been sent the Comforter
who teacheth all things. But we were speaking not so much of the
religion of the slaves as of the religious instruction given or
allowed them by their masters. It is necessarily circumscribed, as I
have told you."
"What was the creed inculcated upon Colonel Shaler's protégés?"
"They were taught that life, even earthly life, is a sacred and
precious gift, for which they were to show themselves grateful by
keeping it pure and noble and by filling it with useful work. They
were taught that duty to God consists not in mere acquiescence, but in
active obedience. They were taught that there are earthly duties
which no human being can lay down; that on the relation of husband and
wife, of parent and child, all other human relations are founded. In
short, Shaler recognized men in his slaves. He attributed to them the
natural rights of men, and the responsibilities of civilized and
Christian men."
"And his neighbors unreasonably took umbrage! Mind, I am no upholder
of slavery. I am merely speaking of what is, not of what ought to be.
A slaveholder, meaning to remain one, can yield nothing in principle,
let him be as indulgent as he will in practice. What becomes of his
title in the slave-family, if the slave-father has one that he is
religiously bound to maintain and the rest of the world to respect?
The master is the owner no longer. The property has died a natural
death."
So slavery dies before Christianity without formal sentence.
"But," the Doctor began, in a different tone, passing lightly from a
train of argument which might have led him where he had not meant to
go, "I should never have taken Shaler to be the lowly-minded man you
represent him. I cannot imagine his people addressing him with the
familiarity that even Harvey permits; still less can I think of him as
treating them with the good-natured roughness of your neighbor
Westlake."
"I have never seen him followed about his place by a crowd of begging
children, nor throwing down coppers or sugar-plums to be scrambled and
squabbled for."
"Nor tweaking their ears, I suppose," broke in the Doctor, laughing,
"nor pulling their hair to make them squeal and rub their heads, and
grin gratefully under the flattering pain of master's condescension. I
have witnessed these little urbanities. I have not met with a case of
the hailing with sugar-plums; but I have known Westlake pelt his
people with some pretty heavy oaths, which were as acceptable, to
judge by the bobbings and duckings and mowings with which they were
received. He is very fond of his people, he tells me, and especially
of a distinguished old crone who was his nurse, and who is to be
gratified with a majestic funeral. She was impartially graced with his
emphatic compliments, and did her utmost to make an adequate return in
'nods and becks and wreathèd smiles.' So I suppose it was understood
that he was expressing himself in the accepted terms of patrician
endearment. Probably Shaler's affection for his wards was not so
demonstrative?"
"There was in his manner to them a considerate kindness,--not
familiar, yet intimate; in theirs to him an affectionate reverence. He
was well fitted to be the chief of a primitive people."
"He would have been sure of election in the days when being taller by
the head and shoulders than the common crowd was a qualification."
"He had the qualification of the ordained as well as that of the
popular leader: 'A comely person, and _the Lord is with him_.' This
last is the mark of the true rulers by divine right,--of the men who
seem framed to be the conductors of higher influences. The less finely
organized
"'Know them, as soon as seen, to be their lords,
And reverence the secret God in them.'"
Harry's beautiful face was wonderfully illuminated. Strange, this
unconscious consciousness of the elect!
"The relation of master and slave," I went on,--for the Doctor did not
offer to speak,--"is, in Shaler's opinion, a most perverted and
unnatural one; but he believes in that of protector and protected. The
love of power, the instinct of dominion, is strong in him. Perhaps it
must be so in those who are to be called to its exercise. 'I know thy
pride,' David's elder brother said to him, when the boy left the
charge of his few sheep to offer himself as the champion of a nation.
But Shaler's ambition was directed by the precept, 'Let him who would
be greatest among you be your servant';--whether deliberately, or by
the spontaneous flow of his large, generous nature, I do not know.
Whatever superiority he possessed, whether of position, education, or
natural endowment, he employed for the advantage of the people under
his care. All the proceeds of the estate were spent upon it. The land
was brought into a high state of cultivation. Its productiveness was
not only maintained, but increased. Nor was beauty neglected. Groves
were planted, marshes drained, ponds formed. The old cabins gave place
to new and pretty cottages. The owners and builders were encouraged to
employ their own invention on them; thus there was great variety in
the architecture. Vines planted about them, by favor of our kind
climate, soon draped them luxuriantly, harmonizing the whole, and
giving even to eccentricities of form a beauty of their own. While he
took care that ability and energy should enjoy their just return of
prosperity, the inferior, whether in body, mind, or soul, were not
Pariahs. As Shaler believed the exercise of beneficent power to be the
greatest privilege accorded to mortals, he made it one of the chief
rewards of exertion."
"Was the privilege appreciated?" asked the Doctor.
"The slave of a tyrannical master is too often the most brutal of
oppressors; but disinterestedness and tenderness have a sympathetic
force, no less, surely, than rapacity and cruelty. Besides, with a
race in which sense of honor is so leading a characteristic as in the
African, the glory of being the doer and the giver, the shame of being
the mere idle recipient, are very potent. Shaler was not too wise and
good for dealing with ordinary human nature; he was considerate of
innocent weaknesses, even of those with which his nature least enabled
him to sympathize. He found, for example, that his people did not like
to see the 'great house' on their estate surpassed in furniture and
decoration by the mansions of neighboring planters. He respected their
simple pride. He understood that his house was their palace, their
state-house,--that their wish to embellish it was, in fact, a form of
public spirit. He indulged them in what was no indulgence to himself."
"Harvey has rather the advantage of him there: he can please himself
and his people at the same time. How long have you known the Harvey
plantation,--Land's End, as Judge Harvey called it, when he first came
to settle here?"
WEDNESDAY, April 10, 1844.
"How long have you known the Harvey plantation?" Dr. Borrow had just
asked me.
"Ten years," I answered. "I was there for the first time about three
years after Mr. Frank Harvey came back from Europe."
"I was there nearly twenty-three years ago. Frank and I had just left
Harvard. We were both going to finish our studies abroad. We were to
sail together. Frank must go home for a visit first, and asked me to
go with him. I saw slavery then for the first time. I had heard enough
about it before. We had just been through the Missouri storm. I did
not find it, as it showed itself on Judge Harvey's place, 'the sum of
all villanies'; though, perhaps, looking back, I may think it was the
sum of all absurdities. I did not reason or moralize about it then. I
was hardly eighteen, and took things as they came. But to judge of
what has been done on that plantation, you should have seen it as I
saw it in '21. Sans Souci would have been the right name for it. Not
that I liked it the less. I made none of these wise observations then.
On the contrary, I was fresh from the study of dead antiquity, and was
charmed to find that it wasn't dead at all. It must be admitted,
there is a certain dignity in the leisurely ease of primitive peoples,
past and present. They seem to think that what they are doing is just
as important as what they may be going to do. We moderns and civilized
talk a good deal about immortality; but those simple folks have a more
vital sense of it: they seem to be conscious that there will be time
enough for all they shall ever have to do in it. Old Judge Harvey was
a sort of pristine man,--about as easy and indolent as the negroes
themselves."
"He was, indeed, of the old type. Formerly, I believe, planters--at
least the well-born and well-reputed--were content, if their estates
yielded them the means of living generously and hospitably, without
display or excessive luxury. They took life easily, and let their
people do the same. I have heard that Judge Harvey moved off here,
from one of the older Slave States, when the money-making mania came
in, hoping to keep up for himself and his people the primitive régime
they had grown up under. I believe he was no advocate of slavery."
"The only forcible thing about him was his dislike of it. He had the
greatest compassion for the slave of any man I ever saw, and with the
best reason, for he was one himself. He was as much the property of
his worshippers as the Grand Lama. He always entertained the
intention of emancipating himself. But there were legal forms to be
gone through with. To encounter them required an immense moral force.
His hundred tyrants were, of course, all as happy as clams, and had as
little thought of a change of domicile. So there was nothing to stir
him up, and there was never any more reason for acting to-day than
there had been yesterday. I must do him the justice, however, to say
that he made provision for his son's living in freedom, in case he
should choose it. In spite of the loose way in which the estate was
managed, it yielded, as of its own free will, a pretty fair income.
The old man spent little, and so put by really a respectable sum, half
of which was to be employed in securing an independence to his son,
and the other half in compensating his natural proprietors for the
loss of his valuable services. Shaler was not original: the scheme he
carried out in the end was old Judge Harvey's exactly,--if, indeed, it
was his, and not his daughter's. I always suspected that it originated
in the head of that little girl. You know Shaler and she were own
cousins. The abolition vein, they say, came down from a grandmother.
At any rate, Judge Harvey's plan, as he detailed it to me, was to
colonize his blacks in a Free State, each with a pretty little sum in
his pocket for a nest egg. He had taken into his confidence---- No,
there was no confidence about it; the Judge was as liberal of his
thoughts as of everything else; there was not an urchin on the place
that might not have known what was planning, for the fatigue of
listening; but the gentle flow of the Judge's words was heard as the
notes of the birds and the frogs were,--with a little more respect,
perhaps, but with no more inquiry after meaning. He had taken, not as
the confidant, then, but as the partner of his day-dreams, a man who
governed his estate for him,--as far as it was governed,--one of the
blackest negroes I ever saw, and one of the cleverest, by name
Jasper."
"Jasper!" exclaimed Harry.
"He has fallen from his high estate,--a Belisarius, only not
quite blind. It is really almost touching to see him feebly fussing
round doing little odd jobs of work about the grounds where he
was once monarch of all he surveyed. At the time I speak of
he was in his glory. It was worth while to see him holding
audience,--according or discarding petitions,--deciding between
litigating parties,--pronouncing sentence on offenders, or bestowing public
commendation on the performer of some praiseworthy act. He carried on
the farm in a loose, Oriental sort of way,--letting the people eat,
drink, and be merry, in the first place, and work as much as they
found good for them, in the second. With all this, he made the estate
do more than pay for itself. It was he who carried the surplus up to
Danesville to be invested. He was like the eldest servant in Abraham's
house, who ruled over all that he had. Frank treated him with as much
respect as, I dare say, Isaac did Eliezer. And I ought to mention that
Jasper kept his master's son very handsomely supplied,--paid off his
college debts too, without a wry look, though it must have come hard
to subtract anything from the hoard. Our Jasper missed it in not
having their schemes carried into effect when he might. He could have
prevailed, as he did in regard to some other matters, by getting his
master embarked in the preliminaries, and then persuading him that
'returning were as tedious as go o'er.' But possibly Jasper himself,
having got the habit of power, did not like to lay it down; or perhaps
he thought he must always have the store yet a little larger, seeing
what Frank's wants were likely to be. And then it probably never
occurred to him that a daughter could die before her father. At any
rate, it was decided that the Judge should arrange the matter by will,
things remaining as they were during his life. He never made a will,
any more than he ever did anything else he meant to do. Did you know
him?"
"I remember him only as a pale, exhausted old man, drawn about in a
garden-chair by Jasper, who was almost as sad and humble-looking then
as he is now."
"It was already over with his reign and his projects. All was at an
end when Constance died. Her father broke down at once and forever.
She was his very soul. When I was there she was only thirteen, but she
was art and part in all her father's plans,--if, indeed, they were not
hers. If she had lived, they would have been carried out;--though, as
far as that is concerned, I believe things are better as they are. But
her brother was as much her subject as her father was. There was a
force about that gentle, generous creature! It was a force like that
of sunshine,--it subdued by delighting. You did not know Constance
Harvey?"
"I have seen her at Colonel Shaler's."
"She recognized what her father did not,--the necessity of some
preparation for freedom. The law against letters did not exist then, I
believe; I remember them, the great and little, painted on boards and
put up round a pretty arbor she called her school-house. I don't know
whether her pupils ever mastered them or not; but what certainly did
prosper was the class for singing, and that for recitation. I had not
seen much of men and things then, and had not learned to distinguish
the desirable and the practicable. Even I came under the illusion of
the hour, and dreamed liberty, equality, and perfectibility with the
best. Not that Constance talked about these fine things, but she had
an innate faith in them of the sort that makes mole-hills of
mountains. Even now, looking back on that diligent, confident child, I
seem to feel the 'almost thou persuadest me.' Poor Constance! She
died, at twenty-two, of overwork. She wore herself out in efforts to
bring her poor barbarians up to the standard her imagination had set
for them."
Constance Harvey had a spirit strong enough to have sustained a
slighter frame than hers through all the fatigues necessary to the
attainment of a great end. She died, not of her work, but of its
frustration. She had all power with her father, except to overcome his
inertness. To this, as years went on, other hindrances were added. Her
brother married a fashionable woman and lived in Paris. His demands
forbade the increase of the reserved fund, and soon began to encroach
upon it. She urged her brother's return. He replied, that the delicacy
of his wife's health made the climate of France necessary to her. His
expenses increased, instead of lessening. Constance saw, coming nearer
and nearer, a danger far more terrible to her than mere pecuniary
embarrassment. She saw that her father must either exercise a courage
that she had little hope of, or break his faith with Jasper,--with
the faithful people who had worked for them, or rather, as she viewed
it, with them, for the accomplishment of a common object. One half of
the fund she regarded as a deposit,--as a sacred trust. Until her
brother's claims had exhausted the portion always intended to be his,
she combated her anxieties, and kept up hope and effort. Through her
genius and energy the income of the estate was increased, the expenses
diminished, and yet the comforts of the work-people not curtailed.
Jasper seconded her bravely. But the hour of dishonor came at
last,--came hopeless, irretrievable. She struggled on a little while
for her poor father's sake, and Jasper exerted himself strenuously for
hers, stimulating the people to renewed industry by his warm appeals.
Before, he had roused them with the hope of freedom and independent
wealth; now, he urged them to rescue from ruin the generous master who
had meant them so much good. But the demands from Paris increased as
the means of supplying them diminished. Debt came, and in its train
all the varied anguish which debt involves, where human souls are a
marketable commodity. Let Dr. Borrow give you the outside of this
story, now that you have the key to it.
"Frank and I were not much together after we got to Paris. Our worlds
were different. Frank was going from ball to ball and from
watering-place to watering-place after Flora Westlake, until they
were married, and then they followed the same round together. His
father wrote to them to come home and live with him, so Frank told me,
and I believe that was what he had expected to do; but Madame Harvey
naturally preferred Paris to the World's End; so there they
stayed,--Frank always meaning to go home the next year, for eight
years. Their establishment, by the way, did Jasper great credit. Then
he heard of his sister's death: they could not go home then; it would
be too sad. But soon followed news of his father's illness: that
started them. On the voyage to New York, he met with this Lenox, liked
him, and engaged him for the place he has filled so satisfactorily. He
judged wisely: Frank has an excellent head for organizing, but no
faculty for administration. Once at home, he devoted himself to his
plantation as his sister had done. I believe her example has had a
great influence with him. But he has respected her practice more than
her theories. He is content to take his people as they are, and to
make them useful to themselves and to him. His father lived a few
years, but did not meddle with anything. Frank has shown an ability
and an energy that nobody expected of a man of leisure and of pleasure
like him. Except a short visit to Europe, two summers ago, here he has
been steady at his post for twelve years through. His life here is
not an hilarious one, for a man of his tastes; but, if doing one's
duty is a reason for being happy, Frank Harvey has a right to be so.
You think he looks sad, Harry. He does,--and older than his age; but I
am afraid there is a nearer cause than you have found for it."
The Doctor sat silent for a few moments with contracted brows; then,
throwing off his vexation with an effort, began again,--
"Frederic is expected home in a week or two. Perhaps we shall fall in
with him somewhere on our road. I should like to see you together and
hear you have a talk about slavery. He is as great a fanatic on one
side as you are on the other."
"He was very far from upholding slavery when I knew him. At school he
used to be indignant with Northern boys who defended it. He used to
tell me terrible things he had himself known. The first thing I ever
heard of Fred made me like him. A New-York boy, who made the passage
to France with him, told me that there was on board the steamer a
little mulatto whom some of the other boys teased and laughed at. Fred
took his part, used to walk up and down the deck with him, and, when
they landed, went up with him to the school he was going to in Havre."
"You were not on board?"
"No."
"Lucky for the mulatto, and for Fred Harvey, too, if he values your
good opinion,--and he values everybody's. If you had taken the boy up,
Fred would have put him down."
"I think not, then. I have heard that he has changed since I knew
him."
"He has changed, if he ever admitted anything against slavery. When
you see him, you can serve up to him some of his own stories."
"I would not do that; but, if he introduces the subject, I shall say
what I think of slavery as plainly as ever I did."
"He certainly will introduce it. And he would not be at all
embarrassed, if you were to cast up his old self to him. He would
admit freely that in his green age he entertained crude opinions which
time and experience have modified. You must be prepared to be
overwhelmed with his learning, though. He is a great political
economist,--as they all are, for that matter, down here. He almost
stifled me with his citations, the last time I was in his company.
When he was in Boston, about eight months ago, I asked him to dine. He
exerted himself so powerfully to prove to me that slavery is the most
satisfactory condition for ordinary human nature, and to persuade me
in general of the wisdom, humanity, and Christian tendencies of
'Southern institutions,' that I determined not to invite him too
often, for fear he should make an abolitionist of me.
"However, I gave half the blame to Shaler. His conduct was really a
reflection upon his cousin Harvey, who had been something of a
celebrity. The Harvey plantation was one of the sights of the State.
Fred knew that his father's humanity made a part of his own prestige
in Northern society. His filial piety took alarm. If Shaler's style of
benevolence became the fashion, Harvey's would be obsolete. He must
either follow the lead of another, and so take a secondary place, or
count as one behind the times. Fred appreciated the position: it was a
question of condemning or being condemned; of course there was no
question. But all has gone to heart's wish. Shaler has passed out of
mind, and Harvey's is still the model plantation."
"I should be glad to have nothing to find fault with in Fred but his
dogmatism and his pedantry," the Doctor began again, lowering his
voice. "After you left Paris, Harry, he fell in with intimates not so
safe. He gives his father anxiety,--has, I very much fear, even
embarrassed him by his extravagance."
Harry looked pained, but made no reply. The Doctor expected one, but
having waited for it a moment in vain, went back to the dinner which
had left so unfavorable an impression. He gave some examples of
Frederic's strain of argument, rather shallow, certainly, and, for so
young a man, rather cold-blooded.
"I thought," Harry exclaimed at last, with emotion, "that I had always
hated slavery as much as I could hate it; but, when I see what it has
done to men whom I like,--whom I want to like,--when I see what it has
done"----
"When you see what it has done to women?" asked the Doctor, as Harry
hesitated to finish his sentence. "Ah, I understand. You are thinking
of that garden scene."
The Doctor turned from Harry and addressed himself to me, taking up
his narrative tone.
"You know we ought to have been here three days earlier. The delay was
owing to that Orpheus escapade I told you of. It took us back to
Omocqua, and, once there, we determined to give a day or two to
Egerton, which we had missed before. The cave was no great affair,
after those we had seen; and the wonderful flowers that grow there
turned out a humbug, as I knew they would. However, Egerton proved to
be something of a place, and who should be there but my friend Harvey
himself, to whose plantation we were bound. He had his carriage, and
proposed to take us down there with him. We accepted, excusing to
ourselves the breach of our rule, in consideration of the gratuitous
tramp we had taken between Omocqua and Tenpinville. We didn't start
until afternoon, so it was rather late when we arrived. However,
Madame received us charmingly, and we had a pleasant hour or two
talking over the old times at Paris and Dieppe. Nobody else appeared
that evening, and I didn't inquire after anybody: I knew Fred was
away, and the other children _were_ children when I last heard of
them.
"I had a room that looked on the garden. Harry was in early in the
morning,--not too early for me. I was already some time dressed, had
unscrewed my press, and was beginning to release my flowers, prizes of
the day before. Harry knew better than to interrupt me, and I sat
working away comfortably and leisurely while he stood at the open
window. Without, not far off, an old man was dressing a border. The
click, click, of his strokes, not very rapid and not very strong, made
a pleasant accompaniment to the other pleasant sounds,--such as those
of the birds, of the insects, and of a little unseen human swarm whose
hum rose and fell at intervals. Suddenly, notes before which
everything else seemed stilled to listen,--those of a clear, rich
voice,--a woman's voice. It chanted a morning hymn. Every word was
distinctly heard. The precision and purity of the tones told of
careful training, and the simplicity of the delivery showed either
high breeding or a fine artistic sense. Was the charm received through
the ear to be heightened or dissolved by the eye? To judge whether
there was anything worth getting up for, I looked at Harry. He had an
expression--awe-struck shall I call it? Yes, but with a soft,
delightful awe. I took my place beside him where he stood looking down
into the garden, as James of Scotland looked down from the Tower, upon
the fair vision flitting among the flowers, and wondered what name
could be sweet enough to call it by,--only Harry was not wondering. It
was I. 'Margarita!' he said, under his breath, and quickly, to prevent
my question. And Margarita it ought to have been! All in white, soft
white; fresh and cool as if a sea-shell had just opened to give her
passage; her face of that lovely pallor which makes Northern roses
seem rude. What two years could do, if this were little Maggie Harvey!
The song was broken off abruptly, just when, recounting the blessings
of the season, it had come to the opening flowers. The theme was
continued, but the tone was changed. The poor old man, in spite of an
immense pair of iron spectacles, with half a glass remaining in one of
the eye-holes, had failed to distinguish a plant of price from the
plebeian crowd that had shot up about it. There it lay on the ignoble
heap, its wilted flowers witnessing against him! Behold our Maggie a
Megæra! If half the promises she made the old offender were
fulfilled, he never sinned again. But I don't believe they were:--
"'Words are like leaves; and where they most abound,
Much fruit beneath them is not often found.'
Jasper trembled under hers, though. Yet he still had thought for the
honor of the family: he lifted his eyes meaningly to our window; she
turned, perceived us; and you should have seen the shame on--Harry's
face!"
THURSDAY, April 11, 1844.
Going home, we made a long circuit. We passed near Piney's plantation.
The slaves were in the field. We stopped to look at them. They all
seemed to work mechanically,--seemed all of the same low type. We
could not have discerned any differences of character or capacity
among them. But the overseer, who stood by, whip in hand, evidently
distinguished shades of industry or reluctance.
"You see nothing of that at Harvey's," said the Doctor, as we walked
on again. "You see nothing like it there," he repeated, as Harry did
not reply.
"The force is there, whether we see it or not," said Harry. "Dr.
Falter told us that his negroes never thought of running away.
Presently we saw the bloodhounds."
"He said that the dogs were never used."
"That their being there was enough."
"Dr. Falter is not an inhuman man, Harry."
"No, indeed. He is only not a free man."
"You mean to say these precautions are a necessity of his position. It
is true; and there is his justification. He has a good heart; he would
rather be served through love than fear. As things are, he must base
his authority on both."
"Is it not terrible, when law and opinion, which should restrain from
tyranny, compel to it?"
"Let us talk of something else."
The Doctor himself led the way to a new topic. He stopped to admire
the great plain which surrounded us. As we walked on again, he spoke
of our magnificent prairies, of the pampas of South America, of the
landes of Gascony, of the pusztas of Hungary, all of which he had
seen, and of which he discriminated for us the characteristic
features. He spoke of the love which the inhabitant of these immense
extents feels for them,--equal to that with which the dweller on the
coast, or the mountaineer, regards his home; a love, the intensity of
which is due to the emotions of sublimity which they, like the ocean
and grand highland scenery, excite, and debarred from which, he whose
life they have exalted pines with a nameless want. The Doctor passed
to the Campagna of Rome, where Harry was at home,--and I, too, through
imagination. Our conversation left its record on the scene we were
passing through. The Doctor, illustrating his descriptions, pointed
out now this, now that feature of our own landscape. The name he
associated with it rested there. Fidenæ, Antemnæ, have thus made
themselves homes on beautiful undulations of our Campagna, never to be
dislodged for me.
The Doctor left us presently, as he was in the habit of doing on our
walks, and went on a little before. Harry and I continued to talk of
Italy,--of all that it has given to the world of example and of
warning. We talked of its ancient fertility and beauty, and of the
causes of its decline. We talked of its earlier and later republican
days; of its betrayal by the selfish ambition and covetousness of
unworthy sons; of the introduction of masses of foreign slaves; of the
consequent degradation of labor, once so honorable there; of the
absorption of landed property in a few hands; of the gradual reduction
of freemen to a condition hopeless as that of slaves; of the
conversion of men of high race--and who should have been capable, by
natural endowment, of what humanity has shown of best and
greatest--into parasites, hireling bravoes, and shameless mendicants;
of the revival of its primitive heroism in its early Christians; of
its many and strenuous efforts after renovation; of the successes it
attained only to be thrown back into ruin by its misleaders and
misrulers. Harry has as warm hopes for Italy as I have, and his nearer
knowledge of her people has not rendered his faith in them less
confident than mine. We talked of the value of traditions, and
especially of those which a people cherishes in regard to its own
origin and early history. I found that Harry had interested himself
very much in the ancient history of Italy, and in the questions
concerning the origin of its different races. In the morning I had
seen the poetical side of his mind, and had received an impression of
his general culture. I now became aware of the thoroughness and
exactness of his special studies.
We came to Blanty's farm. The Doctor stopped at the gate and we
rejoined him there. Blanty was standing before his door, in conference
with a tall, strong, self-reliant-looking black man,--a slave, but a
slave as he might have been in Africa: the respectful and respected
aid, companion, adviser of his master. Blanty, seeing us, came down to
the gate and asked us to go in. We had not time; but we had a little
talk where we were. Blanty and I discussed the future of our crops. He
was well content with the season and its prospects. He had seen Dr.
Borrow and Harry on Sunday. A single interview at a common friend's
makes intimate acquaintance out here. Blanty was quite unreserved, and
praised himself and everything belonging to him as frankly as ever
Ulysses did. He is a grand good fellow. Dr. Borrow's eye rested on the
black man, who remained where his master had left him, in an attitude
for a statue,--so firm was his stand, so easy, so unconscious.
"He would make a good Othello," said the Doctor to Blanty.
"Yes, it is Othello. Mr. Colvil has told you about him?"
"Where did he get his name?" asked the Doctor.
"My mother gave it to him. He will not let himself be called out of
it. He never knows himself by it, if it is shortened. He is a native
African, though all of his life that he can remember he has passed
here. His mother brought him away in her arms. They were carried to
Cuba first, and re-shipped. He is more of a man than I am," continued
Blanty, who is enough of a man to risk admitting a superior. "If I had
his head and his tongue, I would have been in Congress before this."
"Can he read?" asked the Doctor.
"Can and does."
"But how does that agree with your law?"
"He's thirty years old," answered Blanty. "The law hadn't taken hold
of reading and writing when he had his bringing up. My mother gave him
as careful teaching as she did her own boys, and he got more out of
it. 'Search the Scriptures,' she said, was a plain command; and how
could a man search the Scriptures, if he couldn't read? But he works
as well. Things here look famously, as you say; I see it myself. It's
more to his praise than mine. He has done well by me; I should like
to do well by him. My farm's larger than I want. I might give him a
piece, as you have your German; but I can't, you know. It's hard, in a
free country, that a man can't do as he would with his own. I don't
want to send him off, and he doesn't want to go. I married late; if I
should be taken away, I should leave my children young. I'd as soon
leave them to his care as to a brother's. I've talked it over with
him; he knows how I feel. And then, he's married his wife on Piney's
plantation. Foolish; but I didn't tell him so. I knew marriage was a
thing a man hadn't his choice in. I sometimes think it was a
providence for the easing of my mind."
"You are a young man, Mr. Blanty," said the Doctor.
"I am forty-five."
"You have thirty good years before you, at least."
"I hope so, and in thirty years a great deal may happen. I mean right,
and I hope God will bring things out right for me somehow."
After we left Blanty's, we walked on in silence for a time. Then the
Doctor spoke abruptly,--in answer to himself, probably, for neither
Harry nor I had said anything:--
"What then? What then? Here is an instance of a slave capable of
taking care of himself,--that is to say, of a man out of place. There
are cases of as great hardship elsewhere. Are we not constantly
hearing, even with us, of men who have never found their place? A
Southern planter would feel himself very much out of place anywhere
but where he is,--and very much out of place where he is, in changed
relations with his people. Blanty is no example. Blanty has half a
dozen slaves perhaps at most, with whom he works himself. He might
change them into day-laborers and hardly know the difference. But
Harvey, Westlake, Falter,--because they are provided for too well, as
you seem to think,--will you dispossess them altogether? Why all
sympathy for the black? Have not the whites a right to a share,--our
own brothers by blood?"
"Yes, to a large share," Harry answered. "But we are made to feel most
for those who have fewest to feel for them; we offer our help first to
the helpless. And would not Mr. Harvey be happier, if there were no
whip or stocks on his plantation, seen or unseen? Would not Dr. Falter
be happier, if his bloodhounds were kept only as curiosities? I wish
them both happier,--and I wish Blanty happier, who seems all the more
like a brother to me, since he can see one in Othello."
"Let Blanty talk, who has a claim. If he can find men enough in his
own State who agree with him, they may be able to do something. We
have no part in the matter."
"We take a part, when we give our sympathy to the maintainers of
slavery, and withhold it from such as Shaler, our truest
brothers,--from such as Blanty, and thousands like him, whom it might
strengthen and embolden."
"Harry, you are a Northerner. You belong to a State where you need not
know that there is such a thing as slavery, if you don't inquire after
it. Take your lot where it has been given to you, and be thankful."
"I am neither a Northerner nor a Southerner: I am an American. If
Massachusetts is dearer to me than all other States, it is only as our
little farm at Rockwood is dearer to me than all other farms: I do not
wish the rain to fall upon it or the sun to shine upon it more than
upon others. When we met an Alabamian or a Georgian abroad, was he not
our countryman? Did we not feel ourselves good Kentucks, walking
through beautiful Kentucky?"
"How is it, Harry, that you, who love your country so passionately,
who take such pride in her institutions, such delight in her
prosperity, will yet fix your eyes on her one blemish, will insist on
suffering pain she hardly feels? There is enough to do. Leave slavery
where it is."
"It will not remain where it is."
"The principles on which our national institutions are founded, if
they have the vital force you attribute to them, will prevail. Let
patience have its perfect work."
"Sloth is not patience."
"The world is full of evils. You have not found that out yet, but you
will. You have spied this one, and, young Red-Cross Knight, you must
forthwith meet the monster in mortal combat. Every country has its
household foe, its bosom viper, its vampire, its incubus. We are
blessed in comparison with others; but we are not celestial yet. We
are on the same earth with Europe, if we are on the other side of it.
We have our mortal portion; but, young and strong, our country can
bear its incumbrance more easily than the rest."
"She can throw it off more easily."
"Leave her to outgrow it. Let her ignore, forget it."
"Prometheus could as soon forget his vulture!"
"We will talk of something else."
We talked of something else for about half a mile, and then the
Doctor, turning to Harry, said,--
"There is enough to do; and you, of all persons, have laid out enough,
without embarking in a crusade against slavery. Write your histories;
show the world that it has known nothing about itself up to this time;
set up your model farm; aid by word and example to restore to the
culture of the ground its ancient dignity; carry out, or try to carry
out, any or all of the projects with which your young brain is
teeming; but do not throw yourself into an utterly thankless work. I
laugh, but I am in earnest. I do hope something from you, Harry. Do
not disappoint us all!"
"It is the work of our time. I cannot refuse myself to it."
"Who calls you to it? Who made you arbiter here? From whom have you
your warrant?"