“I thought they were nice, respectable people.”
“O, perfectly nice and respectable,—very good people, in fact, so far as that goes. But then you must see the difficulty.”
“My dear cousin, I am afraid you must explain.”
“Why, their color, to be sure. Don’t you see?”
“Oh!” said the Colonel. “That’s it, is it? Excuse me, but I have been living in France, where these distinctions are wholly unknown, and I have not yet got myself in the train of fashionable ideas here.”
“Well, then, let me teach you,” said Miss Katy. “You know we republicans go for no distinctions except those created by Nature herself, and we found our rank upon color, because that is clearly a thing that none has any hand in but our Maker. You see?”
“Yes; but who decides what color shall be the reigning color?”
“I’m surprised to hear the question! The only true color—the only proper one—is our color, to be sure. A lovely pea-green is the precise shade on which to found aristocratic distinction. But then we are liberal;—we associate with the Moths, who are gray; with the Butterflies, who are blue-and-gold-colored; with the Grasshoppers, yellow and brown;—and society would become dreadfully mixed if it were not fortunately ordered that the Crickets are black as jet. The fact is, that a class to be looked down upon is necessary to all elegant society, and if the Crickets were not black, we could not keep them down, because, as everybody knows, they are often a great deal cleverer than we are. They have a vast talent for music and dancing; they are very quick at learning, and would be getting to the very top of the ladder if we once allowed them to climb. But their being black is a convenience,—because, as long as we are green and they black, we have a superiority that can never be taken from us. Don’t you see, now?”
“O yes, I see exactly,” said the Colonel.
“Now that Keziah Cricket, who just came in here, is quite a musician, and her old father plays the violin beautifully;—by the way, we might engage him for our orchestra.”