Whether it is located in the brain, or has its seat in that sentient organ of the body which physiologists indicate as the seat of life, we are left to conjecture; but it is certain that there exists somewhere in the anatomy of man an essence, or attribute, which, under certain outward conditions, becomes the tyrant of his movements, and renders the disposition to cultivate acquaintance with other vistas a passion too strong to be resisted. Philosophers tell us that “self-preservation is the first law of life,” but their efforts to connect this postulate with some rational conclusion deduced from the organism of the animal under discussion, is so egregiously wanting in the elements of a sound syllogism, that we are led to believe that it has no foundation in fact, and that they only meant to say that where the emotion denominated fear assumes the reigns of physical government, an open road and fair play are all that is required to render the proposed achievement a success. It is useless to tell us that men, adopting the improved modes of destroying life which this Christian age has developed, stand up to explode missiles at each other under the persuasion that they are doing something that will tend to preserve life; or, if that were not false doctrine, who that ever attended one of these tournaments of bad shooting is unable to testify to the overpowering conviction that the parties thereto would have enjoyed themselves better in a free exercise of their limbs—
“Over the meadows and far away.”
Having examined into the philosophy of this question, with a view solely of removing certain doubts inherited from the professions of a warlike ancestry, and, predisposed to err in the opposite direction, we have arrived at the conclusion, once for all, that the “git up and git” tendencies of mankind, when the proper incentives are at hand, are as absolutely irresistible as the water-fall at Niagara, and as necessary to the happiness of the subject as the barriers that separate him from his mother-in-law. Having solved this problem, and satisfied ourselves of the universality of its conditions, it next occurred to us to examine its terms as applicable to the different races of men. And here we found that while all races are equally gifted in this respect, yet its elementary conditions are not always the same in different branches of the Adamic tree. Taking the extremes in color as the representatives of a fair contrast in other respects, we have confined our investigations to the white and black races,—and with a view to our own profit, and to being fully comprehended by the reader,—these races as they exist on our own shores. Without any reference whatever to the vain science known as metaphysics, our conclusions are as follows: With the white man this element of his being is less on the surface, and he wears it uneasily, as though it were foreign to his genius, and at the same time a curb on his actions. With the other it is a loose-fitting garment, worn on the outside, and he seems rather pleased than otherwise that he is thus rendered a spectacle to his fellow-men. The white man attempts to conceal it, and above all would persuade himself that it is an illusion of the fancy. The black, contrariwise, has no qualms of conscience on the subject, and if pressed for argument, might adduce it as a crowning evidence of his homogeneity.
Two incidents have come under our notice which set forth this distinction more forcibly than any form of words we could employ. A farmer living in the back country, near the city of Shreveport, brought his son—a youth whose adolescency would hardly have escaped the notice of strangers—to that thriving burg to view the sights. The steamboat feature was down in the programme, of course, and reaching the wharf, the youngster was commissioned to go aboard and obtain the exact “geography” of “the thing.” This he proceeded to do with all haste, exploring the quarter-deck, rummaging through the cabins, and finally bringing up before the engine with a manner that said as plainly as words, “the thing is inconceivable.” The engineer, standing not far off, observed this movement, and, probably without contemplating such serious results, stepped briskly forward and touched the safety-valve. Startled beyond all “fancy fathoms” by the earthquake of sound, “country” accomplished a rapid retrograde movement, which soon involved him in conflict with the waves, whence, floundering and spluttering, after the fashion of a porpoise, and having absorbed a barrel or more of river water, he was with difficulty rescued. Being dragged ashore, and before the agonies of drowning had fairly relinquished his frame, a sympathizing bystander asked if he had been much scared. His reply was characteristic of the Caucasian blood, “No-o-o (splutter); I’ve (splutter) seen the critters afore.”
Not many hundred miles north of the city of Galveston, while the Texas Central Railroad was in course of construction, and at a little town which formed its northern terminus for the time being, occurred the following:
Two individuals of African lineage, hailing from the upper districts of the State, who had never seen an “ingine,” but had long promised themselves that felicity, stood at the depôt awaiting with some impatience the arrival of the evening train. Standing hand in hand, and conversing excitedly on the topic uppermost in their minds, their outre appearance, coupled with the exceeding verdancy of some of their observations, became the subject of attention, and then of amused remark from the bystanders. This they were unable to appreciate for various reasons, and soon the appearance of the winged monster around a neighboring curve, with appalling and most unpreconceived suddenness, took away their breaths and rocked their bodies with shivers of dread. Their first impulse was to dismiss their corner of the meeting and pass to the rear; but, looking around upon the broadly smiling crowd, they were reassured for the moment, and each grasping the other’s horny palm with a grip which evinced their respective determinations not to be left, whatever might happen, they stood hearkening to the thunderous echoes, and noting with special wonder the cow-catching and other aggressive features of the steadily approaching monster. It had now stolen by slow degrees to within twenty feet of the spot which they occupied, and the whistle breaking into a peculiarly loud accompaniment to the huff—huff—huff of the bellowing engine, the expression, “Dar, she’s busted!” startled even the man of iron at the throttle-valve, and prefacing the exertion with a ten-feet leap into the air, the panic-stricken darkies broke across the landscape with a yearning desire for tall timber that was eloquently depicted on every motion of the supple limbs, and in each sway of the backward leant and pendulous cerebellums. The cheers of the crowd, and a few extra flourishes on the big horn, served to augment their weight of conviction, and buckling to their labor with saw-mill regularity of stroke, and a settled determination not to be overtaken by slower time, they soon blended with the verge of the horizon, and took that leap into space which rescues them from all further connection with this narrative.
So thin is the partition wall that separates the real from the ideal with these beings, that they continually advertise themselves for a scare, and should they by any accident be deprived of their weekly supply of the element, loss of appetite and other serious bodily symptoms would undoubtedly ensue.
We have volunteered these remarks and illustrations, pertaining to the philosophy of this question, with a view of introducing the following occurrence:
In that portion of the State of Mississippi where the pumpkins grow largest, and the mosquitoes are supplied with blood-letting apparatus at both extremities, and at about that period of post bellum history when the K. K. K. rabies had taken strongest hold upon the chivalry of the neighboring hills and valleys, a great “awakening” occurred among the children of the new Abrahamic covenant. In other words, and to quote the language of one of the communicants, “a ole fashyun’d whoopin’, bumpin’, jumpin,’ tumblin,’ rousation of de dry bones had superseemed froo de inscroomentality of Brudder Jones’s preechin’.” For a period of six weeks the lame, halt, and blind of the neighboring plantations had been led into the troubled waters with manifestations of relief that the most skeptical would hardly question, and still, to quote further, “Zion was a wavin’, and de onregenerate milyums flockin’ abode of de ‘gospil car.’” Indeed, the “orfumdoxeky of de new doctorin’” was having its effect everywhere, and old soggy timber that had resisted the improvements in wedges for half a century went to atoms under the vigorous mauling of “Brudder Jones.” No sooner had one squad of penitents been “bumped” through and converted into stools for the sisters, than the raw material for another and larger was at hand, and “swingin’, whoopin’, rollin’,” the “thing” held right on its course over the rheumatic toes of the aged and infirm, and into the combative “buzzums” of the young, vigorous, and “kick-him-hard-and-let-him-go.”
But though nothing could be more delightful to the writer than to continue the narrative in this strain, recording only the triumphs of “suvverin grace,” and concerning himself most with the æsthetic beauties of its “sperimental terms,” yet duty compels him to state that while Brother Jones and his militant hosts were pressing hard upon the enemy from their entrenched position, their campaign was far from embodying all the gospel conditions. Though we could wish the sentence blotted out after we had written it, it behooves us to say, in plain words, that sins both of omission and commission soiled their robes, and wrought, or should have done so, a languishing effect on their hosannas. The grassy cotton-fields and rioting pumpkin vines testified to the former, while the commission department of the offence, with such a paraphrase of that word as may be effected by a slight transposition of accent, was directed with most fatal precision of aim at the henneries and “piggeries” of the neighboring white trash. So constant and regular were their visits to the haunts of the feathered domestics, that the fashion of noting absentees from roll-call became obsolete; and a full chorus of grunts was so foreign to the morning habits of the pig-pen, that such an outburst in that quarter must have affected the nerves of the strongest. Indeed, that division of the pale-faced settlers whose springtime felicity depended largely on this class of commissaries, had arrived at such a desperate strait that, in convention assembled, it was resolved to retrench, and, if we must write it, their “artifice” of retrenchment was levelled at Brother Jones and his “band of robbers,” as they were politely termed. The scheme “hit upon,” and the success which followed it, may be gathered from the following scene: