LETTER XCIX.
IN WHICH OUR CORRESPONDENT IS BETRAYED INTO ARGUMENT; BUT RECOVERS IN TIME TO GIVE US THE USUAL CHRISTMAS SONG AND STORY OF THE RENOWNED BRIGADE.
Washington, D.C., Dec. 27th, 1863.
Another Christmas finds our great stragetic country in the toils of war, my boy, and the chiming of the bells is lost in the roar of ingenious artillery. Where blazes the yule log that misses not at least one manly form from its genial ring of quivering Christmas light; and where hangs the mistletoe bough beneath which at least one gentle, womanly heart beats not the quicker with fond thoughts of the lad whose first kiss upon her half-reluctant lips was destined to burn in future there as her keepsake from a hero? Dear old Christmas! rich to memory in all the simple joys and fond, familiar sanctities of home, thou comest sadly upon me in my exile with the iron men of war, the waxen men of politics; and though I hail thee merry for thy cheery evergreens, God knows it is thy snow that presses nearest to my heart. But a truce to sentiment, my boy, when the most sentimental object I have seen for a week is the Conservative Kentucky Chap, whose imbibing method of celebrating the approach of Christmas invariably leads him into disquisitions upon the wrongs of the heroic White Man. On Tuesday, as we took Richmond together, with the least bit of sugar in the world, he leaned heavily upon me, and says he:
"The ancient State of Kentucky, of which I am a part, is growing sick at the stomach to see how the Black Man is continually being raised above the White Man; and Kentucky demands to be immediately informed whether or no this war is to be prosecuted in future for the White Man?"
"For the White Man," my boy, he said; "for the White Man!"
And was he not right? The noble being to whom he alluded is certainly richly justified in a very high pitch of pride over the gratifying fact, that his natural complexion is considerably whiter than anything at all darker. In the abstract, my boy, it is not a positive white, and its general hue, if characteristic of a napkin would hardly enable that napkin to pass muster at the feast of an Apicius or a Lamia; but, as compared with other complexions, it is properly colorless, and strikes the eye very pleasantly when regarded by a single person in a mirror. So highly, indeed, do many possessors of this complexion admire its prevailing whiteness, that they perform their ablutions with an artistic design to leave here and there certain picturesque streaks of delicate shading, thereby causing the whiteness of the intervening spots to appear all the more dazzling. Others, again, religiously refrain from water outwardly as well as inwardly, for the apparent purpose of incrusting the purity of their valuable complexion in a protecting coat; thus preserving it from any possible bad effect of the sun. Still others, my boy, continue to practise the thorough ablution of the ancients, but signally succeed in throwing out the whiteness of the level of their faces in excellent relief, by adopting measures to implant a contrasting red on the tips of their noses. And a fourth class, having an eye to beauties of a White background for the exhibition of chaste neutral tints, incur the frequent freckle and the graceful pimple with great judgment and taste.
Considering the character of the White face with due profundity of thought, my boy, I am led to regard it as a canvas, expressly intended by nature to receive quick and vivid paintings of all the virtues; and so nicely adapted to the least of humanity's desires, that the woman who has no virtues to limn themselves thereon, may yet paint it to suit herself.
This cannot be said of the Black skin, my boy. Upon that the beautiful virtue of Modesty cannot paint itself in a blush when its owner is detected in the act of taking a bribe; nor is it susceptible of that beautiful sunset-tint which the genial merit of being able to punish four bottles at a sitting delights to leave upon a face of Caucasian extraction. It is even incapable of receiving those exquisite sub-ocular shades which adorn a White face after an evening's innocent enjoyment at the Club, and it fails signally to absorb the delicate tint of yellow not unfrequently perceptible near the outer corners of the busy dental department of the tobacconizing White man's physiognomy.
Taking all these facts into calculation, my boy, it is plainly evident that the variously-ornamented White skin is an article much superior to the Black, and certainly designates its wearers as beings intended to move in nothing but the highest natural circles.