Indeed, a Virginian had an opportunity for seeing much choice society at home; for our watering-places attracted the best people from other States, who often visited us at our houses.
On the Mississippi boat to which I have alluded it was remarked that the negro servants paid the Southerners more constant and deferential attention than the passengers from the non-slaveholding States, although some of the latter were very agreeable and intelligent, and conversed with the negroes on terms of easy familiarity,—showing, what I had often observed, that the negro respects and admires those who make a "social distinction" more than those who make none.
CHAPTER X.
We were surprised to find in an "Ode to the South," by Mr. M. F. Tupper, the following stanza:
"Yes, it is slander to say you oppressed them:
Does a man squander the prize of his pelf?
Was it not often that he who possessed them
Rather was owned by his servants himself?"