"Oh, I see, Miss Anne, you are for pursuing your advantage. I see triumph in your eyes. But yet," he added, "after all this display, the capability of your children makes me feel sad. To what end is it? What purpose will it serve, except to unfit them for their inevitable condition—to make them discontented and unhappy?"
"Well," replied Anne, "there ought to be no inevitable condition that makes it necessary to dwarf a human mind. Any condition which makes a full development of the powers that God has given us a misfortune, cannot, certainly, be a healthy one—cannot be right. If a mind will grow and rise, make way and let it. Make room for it, and cut down everything that stands in the way!"
"That's terribly levelling doctrine, Miss Anne."
"Let it level, then!" said Anne. "I don't care! I come from the old Virginia cavalier blood, and am not afraid of anything."
"But, Miss Anne, how do you account for it that the best-educated and best-treated slaves—in fact, as you say, the most perfectly-developed human beings—were those who got up the insurrection in Charleston?"
"How do you account for it," said Anne, "that the best-developed and finest specimens of men have been those that have got up insurrections in Italy, Austria, and Hungary?"
"Well, you admit, then," said Mr. Bradshaw, "that if you say A in this matter, you've got to say B."
"Certainly," said Anne, "and when the time comes to say B, I'm ready to say it. I admit, Mr. Bradshaw, it's a very dangerous thing to get up steam, if you don't intend to let the boat go. But when the steam is high enough, let her go, say I."
"Yes, but, Miss Anne, other people don't want to say so. The fact is, we are not all of us ready to let the boat go. It's got all our property in it—all we have to live on. If you are willing yourself, so far as your people are concerned, they'll inevitably want liberty, and you say you'll be ready to give it to them; but your fires will raise a steam on our plantations, and we must shut down these escape-valves. Don't you see? Now, for my part, I've been perfectly charmed with this school of yours; but, after all, I can't help inquiring whereto it will grow."