And yet, though familiarity partially deadened the feeling produced by the first one I witnessed, a slave auction is the most utterly revolting spectacle that I ever looked upon. Its odiousness does not lie in the lustful glances and expressions which a young and comely woman on the block always elicits; nor in the indelicate conversation and handling to which she is subjected; nor in the universal infusion of white blood, which tells its own story about the morality of the institution; nor in the separation of families; nor in the sale of women—as white as our own mothers and sisters—made pariahs by an imperceptible African taint; nor in the scars and "defects," suggestive of cruelty, which are sometimes seen.
All these features are bad enough, but many sales exhibit few of them, and are conducted decorously. The great revolting characteristic lies in the essence of the system itself—that claim of absolute ownership in a human being with an immortal soul—of the right to buy and sell him like a horse or a bale of cotton—which insults Democracy, belies Civilization, and blasphemes Christianity.
In March, there was a heavy snow-storm in New York. Telegraphic intelligence of it reached me in an apartment fragrant with orange blossoms, where persons in linen clothing were discussing strawberries and ice-cream. It made one shiver in that delicious, luxurious climate. Blind old Milton was right. Where should he place the Garden of Eden but in the tropics? How should he paint the mother of mankind but in
——"The flowing gold
Of her loose tresses,"
as a blonde—the distinctive type of northern beauty?
[CHAPTER V.]
There's villany a broad; this letter shall tell you more.
Love's Labor Lost.