Uncle Tom's Cabin
they had ’_sans culotte_’ governors to their hearts’ content. The
people of Hayti—”
“O, come, Augustine! as if we hadn’t had enough of that abominable,
contemptible Hayti![1] The Haytiens were not Anglo Saxons; if they had
been there would have been another story. The Anglo Saxon is the
dominant race of the world, and _is to be so_.”
[1] In August 1791, as a consequence of the French Revolution, the
black slaves and mulattoes on Haiti rose in revolt against the whites,
and in the period of turmoil that followed enormous cruelties were
practised by both sides. The “Emperor” Dessalines, come to power in
1804, massacred all the whites on the island. Haitian bloodshed became
an argument to show the barbarous nature of the Negro, a doctrine
Wendell Phillips sought to combat in his celebrated lecture on
Toussaint L’Ouverture.
“Well, there is a pretty fair infusion of Anglo Saxon blood among our
slaves, now,” said Augustine. “There are plenty among them who have
only enough of the African to give a sort of tropical warmth and fervor
to our calculating firmness and foresight. If ever the San Domingo hour
comes, Anglo Saxon blood will lead on the day. Sons of white fathers,
with all our haughty feelings burning in their veins, will not always
be bought and sold and traded. They will rise, and raise with them
their mother’s race.”
“Stuff!—nonsense!”
“Well,” said Augustine, “there goes an old saying to this effect, ‘As
it was in the days of Noah so shall it be;—they ate, they drank, they
planted, they builded, and knew not till the flood came and took
them.’”
“On the whole, Augustine, I think your talents might do for a circuit
rider,” said Alfred, laughing. “Never you fear for us; possession is
our nine points. We’ve got the power. This subject race,” said he,
stamping firmly, “is down and shall _stay_ down! We have energy enough
to manage our own powder.”
“Sons trained like your Henrique will be grand guardians of your
powder-magazines,” said Augustine,—“so cool and self-possessed! The
proverb says, ‘They that cannot govern themselves cannot govern
others.’”
“There is a trouble there” said Alfred, thoughtfully; “there’s no doubt
that our system is a difficult one to train children under. It gives
too free scope to the passions, altogether, which, in our climate, are
hot enough. I find trouble with Henrique. The boy is generous and
warm-hearted, but a perfect fire-cracker when excited. I believe I
shall send him North for his education, where obedience is more
fashionable, and where he will associate more with equals, and less
with dependents.”
“Since training children is the staple work of the human race,” said
Augustine, “I should think it something of a consideration that our
system does not work well there.”
“It does not for some things,” said Alfred; “for others, again, it
does. It makes boys manly and courageous; and the very vices of an
abject race tend to strengthen in them the opposite virtues. I think
Henrique, now, has a keener sense of the beauty of truth, from seeing
lying and deception the universal badge of slavery.”
“A Christian-like view of the subject, certainly!” said Augustine.
“It’s true, Christian-like or not; and is about as Christian-like as
most other things in the world,” said Alfred.
“That may be,” said St. Clare.
“Well, there’s no use in talking, Augustine. I believe we’ve been round
and round this old track five hundred times, more or less. What do you
say to a game of backgammon?”
The two brothers ran up the verandah steps, and were soon seated at a
light bamboo stand, with the backgammon-board between them. As they
were setting their men, Alfred said,
“I tell you, Augustine, if I thought as you do, I should do something.”
“I dare say you would,—you are one of the doing sort,—but what?”
“Why, elevate your own servants, for a specimen,” said Alfred, with a
half-scornful smile.
“You might as well set Mount Ætna on them flat, and tell them to stand
up under it, as tell me to elevate my servants under all the
superincumbent mass of society upon them. One man can do nothing,
against the whole action of a community. Education, to do anything,
must be a state education; or there must be enough agreed in it to make
a current.”
“You take the first throw,” said Alfred; and the brothers were soon
lost in the game, and heard no more till the scraping of horses’ feet
was heard under the verandah.
“There come the children,” said Augustine, rising. “Look here, Alf! Did
you ever see anything so beautiful?” And, in truth, it _was_ a
beautiful sight. Henrique, with his bold brow, and dark, glossy curls,
and glowing cheek, was laughing gayly as he bent towards his fair
cousin, as they came on. She was dressed in a blue riding dress, with a
cap of the same color. Exercise had given a brilliant hue to her
cheeks, and heightened the effect of her singularly transparent skin,
and golden hair.
“Good heavens! what perfectly dazzling beauty!” said Alfred. “I tell
you, Auguste, won’t she make some hearts ache, one of these days?”
“She will, too truly,—God knows I’m afraid so!” said St. Clare, in a
tone of sudden bitterness, as he hurried down to take her off her
horse.
“Eva darling! you’re not much tired?” he said, as he clasped her in his
arms.
“No, papa,” said the child; but her short, hard breathing alarmed her
father.
“How could you ride so fast, dear?—you know it’s bad for you.”
“I felt so well, papa, and liked it so much, I forgot.”
St. Clare carried her in his arms into the parlor, and laid her on the
sofa.
“Henrique, you must be careful of Eva,” said he; “you mustn’t ride fast
with her.”
“I’ll take her under my care,” said Henrique, seating himself by the
sofa, and taking Eva’s hand.
Eva soon found herself much better. Her father and uncle resumed their
game, and the children were left together.
“Do you know, Eva, I’m sorry papa is only going to stay two days here,
and then I shan’t see you again for ever so long! If I stay with you,
I’d try to be good, and not be cross to Dodo, and so on. I don’t mean
to treat Dodo ill; but, you know, I’ve got such a quick temper. I’m not
really bad to him, though. I give him a picayune, now and then; and you
see he dresses well. I think, on the whole, Dodo ’s pretty well off.”
“Would you think you were well off, if there were not one creature in
the world near you to love you?”
“I?—Well, of course not.”
“And you have taken Dodo away from all the friends he ever had, and now
he has not a creature to love him;—nobody can be good that way.”
“Well, I can’t help it, as I know of. I can’t get his mother and I
can’t love him myself, nor anybody else, as I know of.”
“Why can’t you?” said Eva.
“_Love_ Dodo! Why, Eva, you wouldn’t have me! I may _like_ him well
enough; but you don’t _love_ your servants.”
“I do, indeed.”
“How odd!”
“Don’t the Bible say we must love everybody?”
“O, the Bible! To be sure, it says a great many such things; but, then,
nobody ever thinks of doing them,—you know, Eva, nobody does.”
Eva did not speak; her eyes were fixed and thoughtful for a few
moments.
“At any rate,” she said, “dear Cousin, do love poor Dodo, and be kind
to him, for my sake!”
“I could love anything, for your sake, dear Cousin; for I really think
you are the loveliest creature that I ever saw!” And Henrique spoke
with an earnestness that flushed his handsome face. Eva received it
with perfect simplicity, without even a change of feature; merely
saying, “I’m glad you feel so, dear Henrique! I hope you will
remember.”
The dinner-bell put an end to the interview.
CHAPTER XXIV
Foreshadowings
Two days after this, Alfred St. Clare and Augustine parted; and Eva,
who had been stimulated, by the society of her young cousin, to
exertions beyond her strength, began to fail rapidly. St. Clare was at
last willing to call in medical advice,—a thing from which he had
always shrunk, because it was the admission of an unwelcome truth.
But, for a day or two, Eva was so unwell as to be confined to the
house; and the doctor was called.
Marie St. Clare had taken no notice of the child’s gradually decaying
health and strength, because she was completely absorbed in studying
out two or three new forms of disease to which she believed she herself
was a victim. It was the first principle of Marie’s belief that nobody
ever was or could be so great a sufferer as _herself_; and, therefore,
she always repelled quite indignantly any suggestion that any one
around her could be sick. She was always sure, in such a case, that it
was nothing but laziness, or want of energy; and that, if they had had
the suffering _she_ had, they would soon know the difference.
Miss Ophelia had several times tried to awaken her maternal fears about
Eva; but to no avail.
“I don’t see as anything ails the child,” she would say; “she runs
about, and plays.”
“But she has a cough.”
“Cough! you don’t need to tell _me_ about a cough. I’ve always been
subject to a cough, all my days. When I was of Eva’s age, they thought
I was in a consumption. Night after night, Mammy used to sit up with
me. O! Eva’s cough is not anything.”
“But she gets weak, and is short-breathed.”
“Law! I’ve had that, years and years; it’s only a nervous affection.”
“But she sweats so, nights!”
“Well, I have, these ten years. Very often, night after night, my
clothes will be wringing wet. There won’t be a dry thread in my
night-clothes and the sheets will be so that Mammy has to hang them up
to dry! Eva doesn’t sweat anything like that!”
Miss Ophelia shut her mouth for a season. But, now that Eva was fairly
and visibly prostrated, and a doctor called, Marie, all on a sudden,
took a new turn.
“She knew it,” she said; “she always felt it, that she was destined to
be the most miserable of mothers. Here she was, with her wretched
health, and her only darling child going down to the grave before her
eyes;”—and Marie routed up Mammy nights, and rumpussed and scolded,
with more energy than ever, all day, on the strength of this new
misery.
“My dear Marie, don’t talk so!” said St. Clare. “You ought not to give
up the case so, at once.”
“You have not a mother’s feelings, St. Clare! You never could
understand me!—you don’t now.”
“But don’t talk so, as if it were a gone case!”
“I can’t take it as indifferently as you can, St. Clare. If _you_ don’t
feel when your only child is in this alarming state, I do. It’s a blow
too much for me, with all I was bearing before.”
“It’s true,” said St. Clare, “that Eva is very delicate, _that_ I
always knew; and that she has grown so rapidly as to exhaust her
strength; and that her situation is critical. But just now she is only
prostrated by the heat of the weather, and by the excitement of her
cousin’s visit, and the exertions she made. The physician says there is
room for hope.”
“Well, of course, if you can look on the bright side, pray do; it’s a
mercy if people haven’t sensitive feelings, in this world. I am sure I
wish I didn’t feel as I do; it only makes me completely wretched! I
wish I _could_ be as easy as the rest of you!”
And the “rest of them” had good reason to breathe the same prayer, for
Marie paraded her new misery as the reason and apology for all sorts of
inflictions on every one about her. Every word that was spoken by
anybody, everything that was done or was not done everywhere, was only
a new proof that she was surrounded by hard-hearted, insensible beings,
who were unmindful of her peculiar sorrows. Poor Eva heard some of
these speeches; and nearly cried her little eyes out, in pity for her
mamma, and in sorrow that she should make her so much distress.
In a week or two, there was a great improvement of symptoms,—one of