Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue Part 20

Night closed in with our decks covered so thickly with the ebony bodies that with difficulty we could move about; fortunately they were as quiet as so many snakes. In the meantime the first officer, Mr. Block, was sending up a new topgallant yard, reeving new rigging, repairing the sails, and getting everything ataunto aloft. The Kroomen were busy washing out and fumigating the hold, getting ready for our cargo again.

It would have been a very anxious night, except that I felt relieved by the presence of the brig which kept within hail. Soon after daybreak Captain Thompson came on board again, and we made a count of the captives as they were sent below; 188 men and boys, and 166 women and girls. Seeing everything snug and in order the captain returned to the brig, giving me final orders to proceed with all possible dispatch to Monrovia, Liberia, land the negroes, then sail for Porto Praya, Cape de Verde Islands, and report to the commodore. As the brig hauled to the wind and stood to the southward and eastward I dipped my colors, when her crew jumped into the rigging and gave us three cheers, which we returned.

As she drew away from us I began to realize my position and responsibility: a young midshipman, yet in my teens, commanding a prize, with three hundred and fifty prisoners on board, two or three weeks'

sail from port, with only a small crew. From the first I kept all hands aft except two men on the lookout, and the weather was so warm that we could all sleep on deck. I also ordered the men never to lay aside their pistols or cutla.s.ses, except when working aloft, but my chief reliance was in my knowledge of the negro,--of his patient, docile disposition.

Born and bred a slave he never thought of any other condition, and he accepted the situation without a murmur. I had never heard of blacks rising or attempting to gain their freedom on board a slaver.

My charges were all of a deep black; from fifteen to twenty-five years of age, and, with a few exceptions, nude, unless copper or bra.s.s rings on their ankles or necklaces of cowries can be described as articles of dress. All were slashed, or had the scars of branding on their foreheads and cheeks; these marks were the distinguishing features of different tribes or families. The men's hair had been cut short, and their heads looked in some cases as if they had been shaven. The women, on the contrary, wore their hair "a la pompadour;" the coa.r.s.e kinky locks were sometimes a foot or more above their heads, and trained square or round like a boxwood bush. Their features were of the p.r.o.nounced African type, but, notwithstanding this disfigurement, were not unpleasing in appearance. The figures of all were very good, straight, well developed, some of the young men having bodies that would have graced a Mercury or an Apollo. Their hands were small, showing no evidences of work, only the cruel marks of shackles. These in some cases had worn deep furrows on their wrists or ankles.

They were obedient to all orders as far as they understood them, and would, I believe, have jumped overboard if told to do so. I forbade the men to treat them harshly or cruelly. I had the sick separated from the others, and allowed them to remain on deck all the time, and in this way I partly gained their confidence. I was anxious to learn their story.

Fortunately one of the Kroomen found among the prisoners a native of a tribe living near the coast, and with him as interpreter was able to make himself understood. After a good deal of questioning I learned that most of them were from a long distance in the interior, some having been one and some two moons on the way, traveling partly by land and partly by river until they reached the coast. They had been sold by their kings or by their parents to the Arab trader for firearms or for rum. Once at the depots near the coast, they were sold by the Arabs or other traders to the slave captains for from twenty-five to fifty dollars a head.

In the Brazils or West Indies they were worth from two to five hundred dollars. This wide margin, of course, attracted unscrupulous and greedy adventurers, who if they succeeded in running a few cargoes would enrich themselves.

Our daily routine was simple. At six in the morning the rope netting over the main hatch which admitted light and air was taken off, and twenty-five of each s.e.x were brought up, and seated in two circles, one on each side of the deck. A large pan of boiled paddy was then placed in the centre by the cook and all went to work with their hands. A few minutes sufficed to dispose of every grain; then one of the Kroomen gave each of them a cup of water from a bucket. For half an hour after the meal they had the liberty of the deck, except the p.o.o.p, for exercise, to wash and to sun themselves; for sunshine to a negro is meat and drink.

At the end of this time they were sent below and another fifty brought up, and so on until all had been fed and watered. Paddy or rice was the staple article of food. At dinner boiled yams were given with the rice. Our pa.s.sengers were quartered on a flying deck extending from the foremast to a point twenty feet abaft the main hatch from which came light and air. The height was about five feet; the men had one side and the women the other. Of course there was no furnishing of any kind, but all lay p.r.o.ne upon the bare deck in rows.

Every morning after breakfast the Kroomen would rig the force pump, screw on the hose and drench them all, washing out thoroughly between decks. They appeared to enjoy this, and it was cooling, for be it remembered we were close under the equator, the thermometer dancing about 90 deg. As the water was sluiced over them they would rub and scrub each other. Only the girls would try not to get their hair wet, for they were at all times particular about their headdress. It may be that this was the only part of their toilet that gave them any concern.

The winds were baffling and light, so we made but slow progress.

Fortunately frequent rains, with sometimes a genuine tropical downpour or cloud-burst, gave us an opportunity of replenishing our water casks, and by spreading the awnings we were able to get a good supply. I found on inspection that there were at least thirty days' provisions on board, so on this score and that of water I felt easy. I lived on deck, seldom using the cabin, which was a veritable a.r.s.enal, with racks of muskets and cutla.s.ses on two sides, many more than the captain needed to arm his crew, evidently intended for barter. Two or three prints of his favorite saints, ornamented with sharks' teeth, hung on one bulkhead. A well-thrummed mandolin and a number of French novels proved him to be a musical and literary fellow, who could probably play a bolero while making a troublesome slave walk a plank. I found also some choice vintages from the Douro and Bordeaux snugly stowed in his spirit locker, which proved good medicines for some of our captives, who required stimulants. Several of the girls were much reduced, refused nearly all food, and were only kept alive by a little wine and water. Two finally died of mere inanition. Their death did not in the least affect their fellows, who appeared perfectly indifferent and callous to all their surroundings, showing not the least sympathy or desire to help or wait on one another.

The fifth day after parting from the brig we encountered a tropical storm. The sun rose red and angry, and owing to the great refraction appeared three times its natural size. It climbed lazily to the zenith, and at noon we were shadowless. The sky was as calm as a vault, and the surface of the water was like burnished steel. The heat became so stifling that even the Africans were gasping for breath, and we envied them their freedom from all impediments. The least exertion was irksome, and attended with extreme la.s.situde. During the afternoon thin cirri clouds, flying very high, spread out over the western heavens like a fan. As the day lengthened they thickened to resemble the scales of a fish, bringing to mind the old saying, "A mackerel sky and a mare's tail," etc. The signs were all unmistakable, and even the gulls recognized a change, and, screaming, sought shelter on our spars. Mr.

Block was ordered to send down all the light yards and sails; to take in and furl everything, using storm gaskets, except on the fore and main storm staysails; to lash everything on deck; to batten down the hatches, except one square of the main; see all the shifting boards in place, so that our living cargo would not be thrown to leeward higgledy-piggledy, and to take four or five of the worst cases of the sick into the cabin and lay them on the floor.

The sun disappeared behind a mountainous ma.s.s of leaden-colored clouds which rose rapidly in the southern and western quarters. To the eastward, also, the signs were threatening. Night came on suddenly as it does in the tropics. Soon the darkness enveloped us, a palpable veil. A noise like the march of a mighty host was heard, which proved to be the approach of a tropical flood, heralded by drops as large as marbles. It churned the still waters into a phosph.o.r.escent foam which rendered the darkness only more oppressive. The rain came down as it can come only in the Bight of Benin. The avalanche cooled us, reducing the temperature ten or fifteen degrees, giving us new life, and relieving our fevered blood. I told Mr. Block to throw back the tarpaulin over the main hatch and let our dusky friends get some benefit of it. In half an hour the rain ceased, but it was as calm and ominous as ever.

I knew this was but the forerunner of something worse to follow, and we had not long to wait, for suddenly a blinding flash of lightning darted through the gloom from east to west, followed by one in the opposite direction. Without intermission, one blaze after another and thunder crashing until our eyes were blinded and our ears deafened, a thousand times ten thousand pieces of artillery thundered away. We seemed utterly helpless and insignificant. "How wonderful are Thy works," came to my mind. Still no wind; the brig lay helpless.

Suddenly, as a slap in the face, the wind struck us,--on the starboard quarter, fortunately. "Hard-a-starboard." "Hanl aft port fore staysail sheet," I called. But before she could gather way she was thrown down by the wind like a reed. She was "coming to" instead of "going off," and I tried to get the main storm staysail down but could not make myself heard. She was lying on her broadside. Luckily the water was smooth as yet. The main staysail shot out of the boltropes with a report like a twelve-pounder, and this eased her so that if the fore staysail would only hold she would go off. For a few minutes all we could do was to hold on, our lee rail in the water; but the plucky little brig rallied a little, her head went off inch by inch, and as she gathered way she righted, and catching the wind on our quarter we were off like a shot out of a gun. I knew we were too near the vortex of the disturbance for the wind to hang long in one quarter, so watched anxiously for a change.

The sea rose rapidly while we were running to the northward on her course, and after a lull of a few minutes the wind opened from the eastward, b.u.t.t end foremost, a change of eight points. Nothing was to be done but heave to, and this in a cross sea where pitch, weather roll, lee lurch, followed one another in such earnest that it was a wonder her masts were not switched out of her.

I pa.s.sed an anxious night, most concerned about the poor creatures under hatches, whose sufferings must have been terrible. To prevent their suffocating I kept two men at the main hatch with orders to lift one corner of the tarpaulin whenever possible, even if some water did go below. Toward morning the wind and the sea went down rapidly, and as the sun rose it chased the clouds off, giving us the promise of a fine day.

When the cook brought me a cup of coffee, I do not know that I ever enjoyed anything more. Hatches off, I jumped down into the hold to look after my prisoners. Battered and bruised they lay around in heaps.

Only the shifting boards had kept them from being beaten into an indistinguishable ma.s.s. As fast as possible they were sent on deck, and the sun's rays, with a few buckets of water that were thrown over them, accomplished wonders in bringing them to life and starting them to care for their sore limbs and bruises.

One boy, when I motioned for him to go on deck, pointed quietly to his leg, and upon examination I found a fracture just above the knee.

Swelling had already commenced. I had seen limbs set, and had some rough idea how it should be done. So while getting some splints of keg staves and bandages ready, I kept a stream of water pouring on the fracture, and then ordered two men to pull the limb in place, and it took all their strength. That done I put on the splints and wrapped the bandages tightly. Three weeks later I landed him in a fair way of recovery.

Gradually I allowed a larger number of the blacks to remain on deck, a privilege which they greatly enjoyed. To lie basking in the sun like saurians, half sleeping, half waking, appeared to satisfy all their wishes. They were perfectly docile and obedient, and not by word, gesture, or look did they express any dissatisfaction with orders given them. But again for any little acts of kindness they expressed no kind of appreciation or grat.i.tude. Physically they were men and women, but otherwise as far removed from the Anglo-Saxon as the oyster from the baboon, or the mole from the horse.

On the fourteenth day from parting with the brig we made the palms on Cape Mesurado, the entrance to Monrovia Harbor. A light sea breath wafted us to the anchorage, a mile from the town, and when the anchor dropped from the bows and the chain ran through the hawse pipe, it was sweet music to my ears; for the strain had been great, and I felt years older than when I parted from my messmates. A great responsibility seemed lifted from my shoulders, and I enjoyed a long and refreshing sleep for the first time in a fortnight. At nine the next morning I went on sh.o.r.e and reported to the authorities, the officials of Liberia, of which Monrovia is the capital.

This part of the African coast had been selected by the United States government as the home of emanc.i.p.ated slaves; for prior to the abolition excitement which culminated in the war, numbers of slaves in the South had been manumitted by their masters with the understanding that they should be deported to Liberia, and the Colonization Society, an influential body, comprising some of the leading men, like Madison, Webster, and Clay, had a.s.sisted in the same work. The pa.s.sages of the negroes were paid; each family was given a tract of land and sufficient means to build a house. Several thousand had been sent out, most of whom had settled at Monrovia, and a few at other places on the coast. They had made no impression on the natives. On the contrary, many of them had intermarried with the natives, and the off-spring of these unions had lost the use of the English tongue, and had even gone back to the life and customs of their ancestors, sans clothing, sans habitations, and worship of a fetich.

Of course there were some notable exceptions, especially President Roberts, who proved himself a safe and prudent ruler, taking into consideration his surroundings and the material with which he had to work. The form of government was modeled after that of the United States, but it was top-heavy. Honorables, colonels, and judges were thicker than in Georgia. Only privates were scarce; for nothing delights a negro more than a little show or a gaudy uniform. On landing I was met by a dark mulatto, dressed in a straw hat, blue tail coat, silver epaulettes, linen trousers, with bare feet, and a heavy cavalry sabre hanging by his side. With him were three or four others in the same rig, except the epaulettes. He introduced himself as Colonel Harrison, chief of police. I asked to be directed to the custom house.

The collector proved to be an old negro from Raleigh, N. C., gray as a badger, spectacled, with manners of Lord Grandison and language of Mrs.

Malaprop. I reported my arrival, and asked permission to land my cargo as soon as possible. He replied that in a matter of so much importance, devolving questions of momentous interest, it would be obligatory on him to consult the Secretary of the Treasury. I said I trusted he would so facilitate affairs that I might at an early hour disembarra.s.s myself of my involuntary prisoners. I returned on board, and the day pa.s.sed without any answer. The next morning I determined to go at once to headquarters and find out the cause of the delay by calling on the President.

He received me without any formality. I made my case as strong as possible, and pressed for an immediate answer. In reply he a.s.sured me he would consult with other members of his cabinet, and give me a final answer the next morning. That evening I dined with him en famille, and recognized some old Virginia dishes on the table. The next morning I waited impatiently for his decision, having made up my mind however, if it was unfavorable, to land my poor captives, be the consequences what they might.

About eleven o'clock a boat came off with an officer in full uniform, who introduced himself as Colonel Royal, bearer of dispatches from his Excellency the President. He handed me a letter couched in diplomatic language, as long as some of his brother presidents' messages on this side of the Atlantic. I had hardly patience to read it. The gist of it was, I might not land the captives at Monrovia, but might land them at Grand Ba.s.sa, about a hundred and fifty miles to the eastward; that Colonel Royal would accompany me with orders to the governor there to receive them. This was something I had not antic.i.p.ated, and outside of my instructions. However, I thought it best to comply with the wishes of the government of our only colony.

Getting under way we stood to the southward and eastward, taking advantage of the light land and sea breeze, keeping the coast close aboard. The colonel had come on board without any impediments, and I wondered if he intended to make the voyage in his c.o.c.ked hat, epaulettes, sword, etc. But soon after we had started he disappeared and emerged from the cabin bareheaded, barefooted, and without clothing except a blue dungaree shirt and trousers. Like a provident negro, having stowed away all his trappings, he appeared as a roustabout on a Western steamer. But he had not laid aside with his toggery any of his important and consequential airs. He ran foul of Mr. Block, who called him Mr. Cuffy, and ordered him to give him a pull with the main sheet.

The colonel complained to me that he was not addressed by his name or t.i.tle, and that he was not treated as a representative of his government should be. I reprimanded Mr. Block, and told him to give the visitor all his t.i.tle. "All right, sir, but the colonel must keep off the weather side of the deck," growled the officer. The cook, the crew, and even the Kroomen, all took their cue from the first officer, and the colonel's lot was made most unhappy.

On the third day we reached Grand Ba.s.sa, and anch.o.r.ed off the beach about two miles, along which the surf was breaking so high that any attempt to land would be hazardous. Toward evening it moderated, and a canoe with three naked natives came off. One I found could speak a little English. I told him to say to the governor that I would come on sh.o.r.e in the morning and see him, and land my cargo at the same time.

The next morning at sunrise we were boarded by a party of natives headed by one wearing a black hat half covered with a tarnished silver band, an old navy frock coat, much too small, between the b.u.t.tons of which his well-oiled skin showed clearly. A pair of blue flannel trousers completed his outfit. An interpreter introduced him as King George of Grand Ba.s.sa. With him were about a dozen followers, each one wearing a different sort of garment--and seldom more than a single one--representing old uniforms of many countries. Two coats I noticed were b.u.t.toned up the back.

The king began by saying that he was and always had been a friend of the Americans; that he was a big man, had plenty of men and five wives, etc.

While he was speaking, a white-bearded old colored gentleman came over the gangway, dressed in a linen roundabout and trousers, with a wide-brimmed straw hat. At the same time Colonel Royal came up from the cabin in grande tenue and introduced us to the Hon. Mr. Marshall, governor of Ba.s.sa, formerly of Kentucky.

In a few minutes he explained the situation. With a few settlers he was located at this place, on the frontier of the colony, and they were there on sufferance only from the natives. I told him Colonel Royal would explain my mission to him and the king. The colonel, bowing low to the king, the governor, and myself, and bringing his sword down with a thud on the deck, drew from between the bursting b.u.t.tons of his coat the formidable doc.u.ment I had seen at Monrovia, and with most impressive voice and gesture commenced to read it. The king listened for a few minutes, and then interrupted him. I asked the interpreter what he said.

He replied, "King say he fool n.i.g.g.e.r; if he comes on sh.o.r.e he give him to Voodoo women." Then turning his back he walked forward. The colonel dropped his paper, and drawing his sword, in the most dramatic manner claimed protection in the name of the government, declaring that he had been insulted. I told him to keep cool, since he was certainly safe as long as he was on board my ship. He grumbled and muttered terrible things, but subsided gradually like the departing thunder of a summer storm.

I arranged the landing of the pa.s.sengers with Governor Marshall, whom I found a sensible, clear-headed old man, ready to cooperate in every way. But he suggested that I had better consult the king before doing anything. I did so, and he at once said they could not land. I told the interpreter to say they would be landed at once and put under the protection of the governor; that if the king or his people hurt them or ran them off I would report it to our commodore, who would certainly punish him severely. Finding me determined, he began to temporize, and asked that the landing be put off until the next day, that he might consult with his head people, for if I sent them on sh.o.r.e before he had done so they would kill them. "If that is the case," I replied, "I will hold you on board as a hostage for their good behavior." This threat surprised him, and he changed his tactics. After a little powwow with some of his followers, he said that if I would give him fifty muskets, twenty pounds of powder, the colonel's sword, and some red cloth for his wives, I might land them. I replied that I had not a musket to spare nor an ounce of powder, that the colonel was a high officer of his government, and that he of course would not give up his uniform.

Fortunately the colonel had retired to the cabin and did not hear this modest demand, or he would have been as much outraged as if his sable Majesty had asked for him to be served "roti a l'Ashantee." However, I told the king I would send his wives some cloth and b.u.t.tons. He grunted his approval but returned again to the charge, and asked that he might choose a few of the captives for his own use, before landing. "Certainly not," I answered, "neither on board nor on sh.o.r.e," and added that he would be held accountable for their good treatment as free men and women. He left thoroughly disappointed and bent on mischief.

In the meantime Mr. Block had made all preparations for landing, and had the boats lowered and ranged alongside, with sufficient rice to last the blacks a week or ten days. The men and boys were sent first. When they were called up from the hold and ordered into the boats not one of them moved. They evidently divined what had been going on and dreaded leaving the vessel, though our Kroomen tried to explain that they would be safe and free on sh.o.r.e. The explanation was without effect, however, and they refused to move. The could only understand that they were changing masters, and they preferred the present ones. Sending three or four men down, I told them to pa.s.s up the negroes one at a time. Only a pa.s.sive resistance was offered, such as one often sees exhibited by cattle being loaded on the cars or on a steamer, and were silent, not uttering a word of complaint. By noon the men were all on sh.o.r.e, and then we began with the girls. They were more demonstrative than the men, and by their looks and gestures begged not to be taken out of the vessel. I was much moved, for it was a painful duty, and I had become interested in these beings, so utterly helpless, so childlike in their dependence on those around them. And I could not help thinking what their fate would be, thrown upon the sh.o.r.e hundreds of miles from their homes, and among a people strange to them in language.

Even Mr. Block was deeply stirred. "He had not shipped," he said, "for such work." I went to my cabin and left him in charge. In the course of an hour he reported, "All ash.o.r.e, sir." I told him to have the gig manned and I would go on sh.o.r.e with Colonel Royal, and get a receipt from Governor Marshall for my late cargo. The colonel declined to accompany me, alleging sickness and requesting me to get the necessary papers signed. No doubt he felt safer on board than within reach of King George.

We landed through the surf on a sandy beach, on which the waves of the Atlantic were fretting. Near by was a thick grove of cocoanut trees, under which in groups of four and five were those who had just been landed. They were seated on the ground, their heads resting on their knees, in a position of utter abnegation, surrounded by three or four hundred chattering savages of all ages, headed by the king. With the exception of him and a few of his head men, the clothing of the company would not have covered a rag baby. They were no doubt discussing the appearance of the strangers and making their selections.

I found the governor's house and the houses of the few settlers some distance back on a slight elevation. The governor was comfortably, though plainly situated, with a large family around him. He gave me a receipt for the number of blacks landed, but said it would be impossible for him to prevent the natives from taking and enslaving them. I agreed with him, and said he must repeat to the king what I had told him. Then bidding him good-by I returned on board, sad and weary as one often feels after being relieved of a great burden. At the same time I wondered whether the fate of these people would have been any worse if the captain of the slaver had succeeded in landing them in the Brazils or the West Indies. Sierra Leone being a crown colony, the English could land all their captives there and provide for them until they were able to work for themselves. In this respect they had a great advantage over us.

Getting under way, I proceeded to Monrovia to land Colonel Royal, and then to Porto Praya, our squadron's headquarters. There I found Commodore Gregory in the flagship corvette Portsmouth, and reported to him. Soon after the Porpoise came in, and I joined my old craft, giving up my command of the captured slaver rather reluctantly.

MR. CHARLES W. CHESNUTT'S STORIES by W. D. Howells

The critical reader of the story called The Wife of his Youth, which appeared in these pages two years ago, must have noticed uncommon traits in what was altogether a remarkable piece of work. The first was the novelty of the material; for the writer dealt not only with people who were not white, but with people who were not black enough to contrast grotesquely with white people,--who in fact were of that near approach to the ordinary American in race and color which leaves, at the last degree, every one but the connoisseur in doubt whether they are Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-African. Quite as striking as this novelty of the material was the author's thorough mastery of it, and his unerring knowledge of the life he had chosen in its peculiar racial characteristics. But above all, the story was notable for the pa.s.sionless handling of a phase of our common life which is tense with potential tragedy; for the att.i.tude, almost ironical, in which the artist observes the play of contesting emotions in the drama under his eyes; and for his apparently reluctant, apparently helpless consent to let the spectator know his real feeling in the matter. Any one accustomed to study methods in fiction, to distinguish between good and bad art, to feel the joy which the delicate skill possible only from a love of truth can give, must have known a high pleasure in the quiet self-restraint of the performance; and such a reader would probably have decided that the social situation in the piece was studied wholly from the outside, by an observer with special opportunities for knowing it, who was, as it were, surprised into final sympathy.

Now, however, it is known that the author of this story is of negro blood,--diluted, indeed, in such measure that if he did not admit this descent few would imagine it, but still quite of that middle world which lies next, though wholly outside, our own. Since his first story appeared he has contributed several others to these pages, and he now makes a showing palpable to criticism in a volume called The Wife of his Youth, and Other Stories of the Color Line; a volume of Southern sketches called The Conjure Woman; and a short life of Frederick Dougla.s.s, in the Beacon Series of biographies. The last is a simple, solid, straight piece of work, not remarkable above many other biographical studies by people entirely white, and yet important as the work of a man not entirely white treating of a great man of his inalienable race. But the volumes of fiction ARE remarkable above many, above most short stories by people entirely white, and would be worthy of unusual notice if they were not the work of a man not entirely white.

It is not from their racial interest that we could first wish to speak of them, though that must have a very great and very just claim upon the critic. It is much more simply and directly, as works of art, that they make their appeal, and we must allow the force of this quite independently of the other interest. Yet it cannot always be allowed.

There are times in each of the stories of the first volume when the simplicity lapses, and the effect is as of a weak and uninstructed touch. There are other times when the att.i.tude, severely impartial and studiously aloof, accuses itself of a little pompousness. There are still other times when the literature is a little too ornate for beauty, and the diction is journalistic, reporteristic. But it is right to add that these are the exceptional times, and that for far the greatest part Mr. Chesnutt seems to know quite as well what he wants to do in a given case as Maupa.s.sant, or Tourguenief, or Mr. James, or Miss Jewett, or Miss Wilkins, in other given cases, and has done it with an art of kindred quiet and force. He belongs, in other words, to the good school, the only school, all aberrations from nature being so much truancy and anarchy. He sees his people very clearly, very justly, and he shows them as he sees them, leaving the reader to divine the depth of his feeling for them. He touches all the stops, and with equal delicacy in stories of real tragedy and comedy and pathos, so that it would be hard to say which is the finest in such admirably rendered effects as The Web of Circ.u.mstance, The Bouquet, and Uncle Wellington's Wives. In some others the comedy degenerates into satire, with a look in the reader's direction which the author's friend must deplore.

As these stories are of our own time and country, and as there is not a swashbuckler of the seventeenth century, or a sentimentalist of this, or a princess of an imaginary kingdom, in any of them, they will possibly not reach half a million readers in six months, but in twelve months possibly more readers will remember them than if they had reached the half million. They are new and fresh and strong, as life always is, and fable never is; and the stories of The Conjure Woman have a wild, indigenous poetry, the creation of sincere and original imagination, which is imparted with a tender humorousness and a very artistic reticence. As far as his race is concerned, or his sixteenth part of a race, it does not greatly matter whether Mr. Chesnutt invented their motives, or found them, as he feigns, among his distant cousins of the Southern cabins. In either case, the wonder of their beauty is the same; and whatever is primitive and sylvan or campestral in the reader's heart is touched by the spells thrown on the simple black lives in these enchanting tales. Character, the most precious thing in fiction, is as faithfully portrayed against the poetic background as in the setting of the Stories of the Color Line.

Yet these stories, after all, are Mr. Chesnutt's most important work, whether we consider them merely as realistic fiction, apart from their author, or as studies of that middle world of which he is naturally and voluntarily a citizen. We had known the nethermost world of the grotesque and comical negro and the terrible and tragic negro through the white observer on the outside, and black character in its lyrical moods we had known from such an inside witness as Mr. Paul Dunbar; but it had remained for Mr. Chesnutt to acquaint us with those regions where the paler shades dwell as hopelessly, with relation to ourselves, as the blackest negro. He has not shown the dwellers there as very different from ourselves. They have within their own circles the same social ambitions and prejudices; they intrigue and truckle and crawl, and are sn.o.bs, like ourselves, both of the sn.o.bs that snub and the sn.o.bs that are snubbed. We may choose to think them droll in their parody of pure white society, but perhaps it would be wiser to recognize that they are like us because they are of our blood by more than a half, or three quarters, or nine tenths. It is not, in such cases, their negro blood that characterizes them; but it is their negro blood that excludes them, and that will imaginably fortify them and exalt them. Bound in that sad solidarity from which there is no hope of entrance into polite white society for them, they may create a civilization of their own, which need not lack the highest quality. They need not be ashamed of the race from which they have sprung, and whose exile they share; for in many of the arts it has already shown, during a single generation of freedom, gifts which slavery apparently only obscured. With Mr. Booker Washington the first American orator of our time, fresh upon the time of Frederick Dougla.s.s; with Mr. Dunbar among the truest of our poets; with Mr.

Tanner, a black American, among the only three Americans from whom the French government ever bought a picture, Mr. Chesnutt may well be willing to own his color.

But that is his personal affair. Our own more universal interest in him arises from the more than promise he has given in a department of literature where Americans hold the foremost place. In this there is, happily, no color line; and if he has it in him to go forward on the way which he has traced for himself, to be true to life as he has known it, to deny himself the glories of the cheap success which awaits the charlatan in fiction, one of the places at the top is open to him. He has sounded a fresh note, boldly, not blatantly, and he has won the ear of the more intelligent public.