To me, who had always lived up North and had never neighbored with anybody darker complexioned than myself (my complexion is good, only some tanned)—it wuz a constant source of interest and instruction to me “to look about and find out,” as the poet has so well remarked.
And I see, as I took my notes, that Victor and Genieve wuz no more to be compared with the rest of the race about them than a eagle and a white dove wuz to be compared with ground birds.
These two seemed to be the very blossoms of the crushed vine of black humanity, pure high blossoms lifted up above the trompled stalks and tendrils of the bruised and bleeding vine that had so long run along the ground all over the South land, for any foot to stamp on, for every bad influence of earth and sky to centre on and debase.
(That hain’t a over and above good metafor; but I’ll let it go, bein’ I am in some of a hurry.)
I spozed then, and I spoze still, that all over the land, wherever this thick, bleeding, tangled undergrowth lingered and suffered, there wuz, anon and even oftener, pure, fair posys lifted up to the sky.
I spozed there wuz hundreds and thousands of bright, intelligent lives reachin’ up out of the darkness into the light, minds jest as bright as the white race could boast, lives jest as pure and consecrated. And I spozed then, and spoze now, that faster and faster as the days go by, and the means of culture and advancement are widening, will these souls be lifted up nigher and nigher to the heavens they aspire to.
A race that has given to the world a Fred Douglass, and that sublime figure of Toussaint L’Ouverture, that form that towers higher than any white saint or hero—and he risin’ to that almost divine height by his own unaided powers, without culture or education—what may it not hope to aspire to, helped by these aids?
Truly the future is glorious with hope and promise for the negro.