"'From that supernal Judge who stirs good thoughts
In every breast of strong authority,
To look into the blots and stains of right.'"
Harry turned to me with a look, grateful, earnest, nobly humble: he
longed to believe an oracle in these words, yet hardly dared.
"I do not know yet whether I am called to it," he said, after a few
moments of grave silence; "but I stand ready. I do not know yet what I
am worth. It must be years before I am prepared to be useful, if I can
be. But when the time comes, if it is found that I have anything to
give, I shall give it to that cause."
He spoke solemnly and with a depth of resolution which showed him
moved by no new or transient impulse. The Doctor's lips were
compressed, as if he forbade himself to answer. He walked away and
looked at some flowers, or seemed to look at them, and then strolled
along slowly by himself. We observed the same pace with him, but did
not attempt to join him.
When we came near the grove, Doctor Borrow took his way toward it, and
we followed him. He sat down on a bench; I took my place beside him,
and Harry his, as usual, on the grass near us. The Doctor, refreshed
by the little interval of solitude, was ready to talk again.
"Do not make me out an advocate of slavery. I am not fonder of it than
you are, Harry. It has brought trouble enough upon us, and will bring
us worse still."
"It can never bring upon us anything worse than itself."
"When you have disposed of slavery, what are you going to do with the
slaves?"
"Slavery disposed of, there are no slaves. The men I would leave where
they are, to till the ground as they till it now, only better. There
has never been a time or a place in which men did not work for their
family, their community, their State. The black man will work for his
family, as soon as he has one,--for his community, as soon as he is a
member of one,--for the State, as soon as we admit him to a share in
it."
"You will not dare to say of these poor beings that they are capable
of self-government?"
"Which of us would dare to say it of himself?" replied Harry,
reverently; "and yet God trusts us."
"If He intends for them what He has bestowed on us, He will grant it
to them."
"Through us, I hope."
"In His own time.
"'Never the heavenly fruits untimely fall:
And woe to him who plucks with impious haste!'