The Leopard's Spots

f the Negro race. She had been in the village often within the year, running up from Independence where she was building and endowing a magnificent classical college for negroes. He had often hear

d his visitor with the deference the typica

h a graceful bow and kindly smile, as he led h

ieve you think her a queen. It pleases me, I can’t help confessing it, though I sometimes despise myself for it. But I am not going to give you an opportunity to feed my vanity this morning. I’

seated himself. He said nothing for a moment, l

traight up pompadour style from her forehead with apparent carelessness and yet in a way that heightened the impression of strength and beauty in her face. Her nose was the one feature that gave warning of trouble in an encounter. She was plump in figure, almost stout, and her nose seemed too small for the

gan to push the tip of her nose upward. At last she snapped out suddenly,

tomed to speak rudely to a lady. If I a

man. I am an idea, a divine mission this morning. I mean to establish a high school in this village for the negroes, and to build a Baptist

athen whose heart and brain created this Republic with civil and religious liberty for its foundations, a missionary among the heathen who gave the world Washington, whose giant personality three times saved the cause of American Liberty from ruin when his army had melt

ories of social and political equality to four millions of ignorant negroes, some of whom are but fifty years removed from the savagery of African jungles. Your work is to separate and alienate the negroes

you have at heart: and the most effective service I could render it now would be to box

?” she asked this in little gasps of fury, her eyes flashing defiance and h

is always a crim

frankness is al

let me make a clean breast of it. I do you personally the honour to acknowledge that

to thank you f

ion you are an insolent interloper. You’re worse, you are a wilful spoiled child of rich and powerful parents playing with matches in a powder mill. I not only will not help you, I would, if I had the power seize you, and remove you to a place of safety. But I c

or,” she replied

r now and was herself again. A curious smil

ever bother my brain again about you, or your people, or your point of view. You have aroused all the fighting blood in me. I feel toned up and ready for a life

taining a great mutual ignorance. Let us hope, paradoxical as it ma

o, smiling at

in, let me ask you one question,” said the

as many as

anters are of the same Puritan stock, these German, Huguenot and English people are all your kinsmen, who stood at the stake with your fathers in the old world. They are, many of them, homeless, without clothes, sick and hungry and broken h

suffer, it is God’s just punishment for their sins in owning slaves

haven’t anothe

of human beings. I am not only going to establish schools and colleges for them here, but I am conducting an experiment of

” asked th

the boys reared in this atmosphere, men of transcendent genius, whose brilliant achievements in science, art and letters will forever silence the tongues of slander against their race. The most interesting of these students I have

n. And while I ignore your work, as a citizen and public man,—privatel

lieve God made us of one bloo

efore you became interested in the black people?” With a twinkle in

. There are over a thousand in the home now, an

ed if you were collecting negroes only now, or, whether you were a

er, tears sprang to her eyes as she turned toward the Preacher wh

e toward those who dare to differ with y

ne. “Enough of this. I am pained to see tears in your eyes. Pardon my thoughtlessness. Let us forget now for a little while that you are an idea, and remember only that you are a c

for those whose souls are on fire with such antagonistic ideas as yours and mine. If Mrs. D

her laugh

e represents the bluest of the blue blood of the slave-holding aristocracy of the South. She has never surrendered and she never will. Wars, surrenders, constitutional amendments and such litt

in friendly parting. “I accept your challenge which this interview implies. I

sorrow and fear and trembling,” res