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"A Dialogue, Between Two Southern Gentlemen And A Negro," Part 1
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33 | Major Bell. -- Yes, yes. Bob, and there were numerous others. | |
34 | Bob. -- I humbly crave your pardon for telling you that our plantation had two who were a little out of the way, my master his Bob. | |
35 | Major Bell. -- Bob, you are a saucy fellow. | |
36 | Bob. -- I tell you what it is master, if a man knows that he is a fool, the battle is half over, and I confess judgement in the case, and if a man knows and feels that he is insane, why ho is sane. Magna est veritas et prevalabit. | |
37 | Major Bell. -- Well, there is hope then, and hope keepeth the heart whole, and let me tell you Bob, the mind which is restrained like mine has been, instinctively seeks and finds its natural repose in the pleasures of sensation, and the wearied sense aspires to hide itself in the kindlier bosom of emotion, whence the intellect springs up anew in renovated strength. | |
38 | Bob. -- Yes, master, a consciousness of one's insanity is proof of a dawn of reason for they that be whole need not a physician. Drunkenness is a small madness, and when a man knows he's drunk, ha, ha, ha, ha, ergo he's sober. Ha, ha, ha, ha. | |
39 | Major Bell. -- What is and has been your ailment? | |
40 | Bob. -- A very harmless one, master, for us poor Darkies. I believe all white folks were only apples, peaches, pears and oysters, and that I could eat them. That blue noses and pink eyes suggested to me the idea that potatoes were descended from a stock of original beads. I still believe in metempsy-chosis. That you only are an apple. That the King of France is an orange, and the queen of England a pond lily, and that President Boyer was a russett brown, and could I collect them together, I'd devour them for supper, and rid the world of such incumbrances. | |
41 | Major Bell. -- Exactly my belief, Bob, and two heads are better than one, if one is a negro's or sheep's head. | |
42 | Bob. -- Oh, master, don't deteri'ate the African race. Has not Mr. Stanhope Smith, he who sleeps near Capt. Stockton, in Princeton, has he not told you? | |
43 | Major Bell. -- Told you what Bob? | |
44 | Bob. -- Has he not told you that we are all alike in substance. That it is the mucosity of the membranous portion that gives the tinge to the appearance by.... I will not tax my master with too much information. You can obtain very important information by subscribing for the American Journal of Insanity. | |
45 | Major Bell. -- Proceed Bob. | |
46 | Bob. -- Asylums are beautiful, pleasant places, where there is sweet music, pretty flowers and delightful walks -- warm in winter, and cool in summer, and there is a variety of character to interest the ingenuity of usual allotment to mankind, and charming ladies, some bright eyed Ophelias. Sometimes some Madge Wildfires, as Master Walter says. | |
47 | Major Bell. -- But, Bob, the gentle sex are always lovely even in wrath. | |
48 | Bob. -- Oh, master, there is no general rule without some particular exceptions, as I heard Professor Barnard say. I dreamed a dream, and thought I saw good angels hovering over the assemblies of the afflicted. I saw them clap their glad wings as ther soared mid-heaven, bearing the enraptured spirit of the departed Rush, and as they nestled him close to their embrace, echoed and re-echoed through the vaulted arch from trumpets that seemed to shake the very Heavens with gladness -- | |
49 | "The memory of the Just is blessed." | |
50 | Major Bell. -- Ah, me, what will become of us? I was proposing to give a relation of what had been done for Africans, for Insane, for Poor, for Blind, for Dumb, but a negro has instructed me and directs me to the source of knowledge. "I had a dream, 'twas not all a dream." I thought I saw the spirit of the immortal Rush, accompanied by a flight of seraphs, with harps melodious, and bending o'er the scene of his former existence, in the sublimest strains of music, and words familiar to the ear of Earth-tried friends, in choir-attendant, say -- | |
51 |
Ye good distressed, ye noble few who there unbending, | |
52 | Bob. -- Stay, stay, master, for mercy's sake. If I am a negro, I am of noble origin, an Egyptian, and you know how the arts travelled. Don't forget it now, master. -- They travelled from Egypt to Greece, and what was she but a horde of savages who seemed to dispute with the beasts of the field, their caverns, and the mangled victims of their ferociousness, until Cecrops planted a Colony amongst them. | |
53 | Major Bell. -- Cecrops! what sort of crops are they, Bob! | |
54 | Bob. -- Master, you misapprehend me.-- Cecrops is the name of a man who planted a Colony, from whom remotely descended to us the blessings we enjoy, where it would be sacrilegious to insinuate that the Blacks hold the key of mystery that have come to them from Egyptian Science, and may revive the genius of ancients to repay the kindness of their masters. | |
55 | (To be continued,) |