I
have a fresh child every week; but I shall find plenty of room in my
heart for you, my poor hunted deer."
"You will keep my secret?"
"Why keep it? No one need be ashamed of it here in free England."
"But he--he--you do not know, Sabina! Those Northerners, with all
their boasts of freedom, shrink from us just as much as our own
masters."
"Oh, Marie, do not be so unjust to him! He is too noble, and you must
know it yourself."
"Ay, if he stood alone; if he were even going to live in England; if
he would let himself be himself; but public opinion," sobbed the poor
self-tormentor--"It has been his God, Sabina, to be a leader of
taste and fashion--admired and complete--the Crichton of Newport and
Brooklyn. And he could not bear scorn, the loss of society. Why should
he bear it for me? If he had been one of the abolitionist party, it
would have been different: but he has no sympathy with them, good,
narrow, pious people, or they with him: he could not be satisfied
in their society--or I either, for I crave after it all as much
as he--wealth, luxury, art, brilliant company, admiration,--oh,
inconsistent wretch, that I am! And that makes me love him all the
more, and yet makes me so harsh to him, wickedly cruel, as I was
to-day; because when I am reproving his weakness, I am reproving
my own, and because I am angry with myself, I grow angry with him
too--envious of him, I do believe at moments, and all his success and
luxury!"
And so poor Marie sobbed out her confused confession of that strange
double nature which so many Quadroons seem to owe to their mixed
blood; a strong side of deep feeling, ambition, energy, an intellect
rather Greek in its rapidity than English in sturdiness; and withal
a weak side, of instability, inconsistency, hasty passion, love of
present enjoyment, sometimes, too, a tendency to untruth, which is
the mark, not perhaps of the African specially, but of every enslaved
race.
Pages:
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248