"It is a sad picture of human nature, indeed," I said, "and from what I see of the negro population I am inclined to attribute less power to education and more to race than I once did."
"The more you see of them, the more you will think so," answered Bessy. "Good education might, and I have no doubt does, produce a great deal of improvement; but as no cosmetic that ever was tried will make a black man white, so I don't believe any education will make his mind and character those of a white man. And yet, this good old preacher, uncle Jack, appears to be an extraordinary exception."
"It does not seem to me," I replied, "that that proves anything. The fair test might be, to take a certain number of children of different races, and educate them from the earliest period exactly upon the same system, and then judge of the race by the average number of each which you found capable, in a certain time, of arriving at an ascertained point of cultivation. Thus, if out of a hundred Anglo-Saxon children ten should reach the highest proposed point in ten years, and only one negro, we might conclude that the Anglo-Saxon race was far more susceptible of cultivation than that of the negro. But solitary instances prove nothing. And now, my dear Bessy, let us, for Heaven's sake, talk of some other subjects, for, otherwise, we shall both of us sink into philosophers--a degradation for which, I am sure, nature never intended us."
"I suspect you intend to be saucy, Richard," answered my fair companion; "but, in sober sadness, we have had a very grave and solemn walk of it--very different from yesterday's."
"And I like yesterday's style best," I said. But though we changed to lighter tones throughout the rest of the walk homeward, we came upon none of those exciting, perhaps I may say dangerous, topics, in which we had previously indulged. I believe the truth is, with every young man and every young woman while unconscious of danger--unconscious that there is near them what, in common gallantry, I must not call a precipice, but a great leap to be taken or not, at their pleasure, which, nevertheless, they may still chance to fall over unawares--they go on sporting up to the very edge of the bank, and then, when finding themselves so near it, they pause and look down with some degree of doubt, and draw a little back and avoid the brink, till resolution comes, and over they go. Thus our talk on the way homeward was very commonplace, and at about a hundred yards from the house, amongst the peach-trees, we met Mr. Stringer, and with him, to my surprise, my Norfolk friend, Mr. Wheatley.
[CHAPTER XII.]
With his usual quick and jerking manner, Mr. Wheatley took off his hat to Miss Davenport; saluted me, made a somewhat indefinite joke about Adam and Eve in the orchard, and then laughed and suddenly stopped, as usual.
"This is an unexpected pleasure, Mr. Wheatley," I said; "for though you hinted you might be coming up to this part of the country, I did not anticipate meeting you in this very house."
"Oh, Stringer is an old friend of mine," he answered. "We are both Northern men, with Southern principles, as they call us, in the blessed region of Yankeedom--eh, Stringer? We read 'M[ae]cenas atavis edite regibus' together, when we were good little boys, and very well behaved; and so, of course, I come to see him from time to time, 'sub tegmine fagi,' which may be translated, I presume, under the shadow of his own fig-tree. But, to speak truth, Sir Richard, the proximate cause of my coming here first, instead of going on further, and taking my good friend on my return, was no other than yourself. Thus stands the case. Your good landlady at Norfolk was assailed by sundry rumours--coming, Heaven knows how--that you wanted, and were in dire necessity for, two large black portmanteaus, which you left under her care; and hearing I was going west, as she termed it, she presented a humble petition and remonstrance to me to bring them on my buggy; to which, of course, I condescended, knowing that wherever you had strayed, or in whatever direction you had gone, I should be sure to hear everything about you at each house on the road. Thus I learned that you had first gone to Mr. Thornton's; then, that you and a young lady," and he took off his hat and bowed to Miss Davenport, "had attempted, unsuccessfully, to drown yourselves in the river, and that then you had come on to Mr. Stringer's."
"You did not get the story about the drowning quite right, sir," said Bessy Davenport. "It was I who tried to drown myself, and my cousin wouldn't let me."