“I lifted up my head and said, one such man redeems a world from infamy. It’s worth while to live in a world honoured by one such man, for he is the prophecy of more to come.”
He paused a moment, fidgeted with a piece of paper he had picked up from the table and seemed at a loss for a word.
It never dawned on Lowell what he was driving at. He supposed, as a matter of course, he was referring to his great speeches and was going to ask for some promotion in a governmental department at Washington.
“I’m proud to have been such an inspiration to you, George. You know how much I think of you. What is on your mind?” he asked at length.
“I have hidden it from every human eye, sir, I am afraid to breath it aloud alone. I have only tried to sing it in song in an impersonal way. Your wonderful words of late have emboldened me to speak. It is this—I am madly, desperately in love with your daughter.”
Lowell sprang to his feet as though a bolt of lightning had suddenly shot down his backbone. He glared at the negro with wide dilated eyes and heaving breath as though he had been transformed into a leopard or tiger and was about to spring at his throat.
Before answering, and with a gesture commanding silence, he walked rapidly to the library door and closed it.
“And I have come to ask you,” continued Harris ignoring his gesture, “if I may pay my addresses to her with your consent.”
“Harris, this is crazy nonsense. Such an idea is preposterous. I am amazed that it should ever have entered your head. Let this be the end of it here and now, if you have any desire to retain my friendship.”
Lowell said this with a scowl, and an emphasis of indignant rising inflection. The negro seemed stunned by this swift blow in his very teeth, that seemed to place him outside the pale of a human being.