I have now, in however cursory or limping a mode, gone over the ground I proposed to cover. The main conclusion of all may be summarized in the briefest terms thus. A slight majority of the whole British nation probably sided with the North, and that chiefly on anti-slavery grounds: a great majority of the more influential classes, certainly, sided with the South, and that chiefly on general grounds of antagonism to the United States. For anything I have said which may possibly sound egotistic or intrusive,still more for anything erroneous or unfair in my statements or point of view,I must commit myself to the candid construction of my reader, be he American or English, be he on the same side of the question as myself, or on the opposite one.
W. M. Rosetti.TWO PICTURES
In sky and wave the white clouds swam,
And the blue hills of Nottingham
Through gaps of leafy green
Across the lake were seen,
When, in the shadow of the ash
That dreams its dream in Attitash,
In the warm summer weather,
Two maidens sat together.
They sat and watched in idle mood
The gleam and shade of lake and wood,
The beach the keen light smote,
The white sail of a boat,
Swan flocks of lilies shoreward lying,
In sweetness, not in music, dying,
Hardhack and virgin's-bower,
And white-spiked clethra-flower.
With careless ears they heard the plash
And breezy wash of Attitash,
The wood-bird's plaintive cry,
The locust's sharp reply.
And teased the while, with playful hand,
The shaggy dog of Newfoundland,
Whose uncouth frolic spilled
Their baskets berry-filled.
Then one, the beauty of whose eyes
Was evermore a great surprise,
Tossed back her queenly head,
And, lightly laughing, said,
"No bridegroom's hand be mine to hold
That is not lined with yellow gold;
I tread no cottage-floor;
I own no lover poor.
"My love must come on silken wings,
With bridal lights of diamond rings,
Not foul with kitchen smirch,
With tallow-dip for torch."
The other, on whose modest head
Was lesser dower of beauty shed,
With look for home-hearths meet,
And voice exceeding sweet,
Answered,"We will not rivals be;
Take thou the gold, leave love to me;
Mine be the cottage small,
And thine the rich man's hall.
"I know, indeed, that wealth is good;
But lowly roof and simple food,
With love that hath no doubt,
Are more than gold without."
Behind the wild grape's tangled screen,
Beholding them, himself unseen,
A young man, straying near,
The maidens chanced to hear.
He saw the pride of beauty born,
He heard the red lips' words of scorn;
And, like a silver bell,
That sweet voice answering well.
"Why trust," he said, "my foolish eyes?
My ear has pierced the fair disguise;
Who seeks my gold, not me,
My bride shall never be."
The supreme hours unnoted come;
Unfelt the turning tides of doom;
And so the maids laughed on,
Nor dreamed what Fate had done:
Nor knew the step was Destiny's
That rustled in the birchen trees,
As, with his life forecast
Anew, the listener passed.
Erelong by lake and rivulet side
The summer roses paled and died,
And Autumn's fingers shed
The maple's leaves of red.
Through the long gold-hazed afternoon,
Alone, but for the diving loon,
The partridge in the brake,
The black duck on the lake,
Beneath the shadow of the ash
Sat man and maid by Attitash;
And earth and air made room
For human hearts to bloom.
Soft spread the carpets of the sod,
And scarlet-oak and golden-rod
With blushes and with smiles
Lit up the forest aisles.
The mellow light the lake aslant,
The pebbled margin's ripple-chant
Attempered and low-toned,
The tender mystery owned.
And through the dream the lovers dreamed
Sweet sounds stole in and soft lights streamed;
The sunshine seemed to bless,
The air was a caress.
Not she who lightly scoffed was there,
With jewels in her midnight hair,
Her dark, disdainful eyes,
And proud lips worldly-wise;
But she who could for love dispense
With all its gilded accidents,
And trust her heart alone,
Found love and gold her own.
THE FREEDMAN'S STORY
IN TWO PARTS
PART I
The manuscript of the following pages has been handed to me with the request that I would revise it for publication, or weave its facts into a story which should show the fitness of the Southern black for the exercise of the right of suffrage.
It is written in a fair, legible hand; its words are correctly spelled; its facts are clearly stated, andin most instancesits sentences are properly constructed. Therefore it needs no revision. On reading it over carefully, I also discover that it is in itself a stronger argument for the manhood of the negro than any which could be adduced by one not himself a freedman; for it is the argument of facts, and facts are the most powerful logic. Therefore, if I were to imbed these facts in the mud of fiction, I should simply oblige the reader to dredge for the oyster, which in this narrative he has without the trouble of dredging, fresh and juicy as it came from the hand of Nature,or rather, from the hand of one of Nature's noblemen,and who, until he was thirty years of age, had never put two letters together.
The narrative is a plain and unpretending account of the life of a man whose own right armto use his own expressionwon his rights as a freeman. It is written with the utmost simplicity, and has about it the verisimilitude which belongs to truth, and to truth only when told by one who has been a doer of the deeds and an actor in the scenes which he describes. It has the further rare merit of being written by one of the "despised race"; for none but a negro can fully and correctly depict negro life and character.
General Thomasa Southern man, and a friend of the Southern negrowas once in conversation with a gentleman who has attained some reputation as a delineator of the black man, when a long, lean, "poor white man," then a scout in the Union army, approached the latter, and, giving his shoulder a familiar slap, accosted him with,
"How are you, ole feller?"
The gentleman turned about, and forgetting, in his joy at meeting an old friend, the presence of this most dignified of our military men, responded to the salutation of the scout in an equally familiar and boisterous manner. General Thomas "smiled wickedly," and quietly remarked,
"You seem to know each other."
"Know him!" exclaimed the scout. "Why, Gin'ral, I ha'n't seed him fur fourteen year; but I sh'u'd know him, ef his face war as black as it war one night when we went ter a nigger shindy tergether!"
The gentleman colored up to the roots of his hair, and stammered out,
"That was in my boy days, General, when I was sowing my wild oats."
"Don't apologize, Sir," answered the General, "don't apologize; for I see that to your youthful habit of going to negro shindies we owe your truthful pictures of negro life."