“Richard H. Hicks.”
“What is your middle name?”
“I ha’n’t got no middle name.”
“What does the H stand for?”
“H stands for Hicks: Richard H. Hicks; dat’s what dey tell me.”
“Can’t you read?”
“No, I can’t read. I never went to school, and never had no chance to learn.”
Somehow this confession touched me with a sadness I had not felt even at the sight of the dead men in the woods. He, young, active, naturally intelligent, was dead to a world without which this world would seem to us a blank,—the world of literature. To him the page of a book, the column of a newspaper, was meaningless. Had he been an old man, or black, or stupid, I should not have been so much surprised. I thought of Shakspeare, David, the prophets, the poets, the romancers; and as my mind glanced from name to name on the glittering entablatures, I seemed to be standing in a glorious temple, with a blind youth at my side.
“Did you ever hear of Sir Walter Scott?”
“No, I never heerd of that Scott. But I know a William Scott.”