With all your professions,
one never sees in the North so cordial and intimate relations between
white and black as are everyday occurrences with us. Why, I remember
my closest playfellow in boyhood was a little Negro named after me, and
surely no two,--WELL!" The man stopped short and flushed to the roots
of his hair, for there directly beside his reserved orchestra chairs
sat the Negro he had stumbled over in the hallway. He hesitated and
grew pale with anger, called the usher and gave him his card, with a
few peremptory words, and slowly sat down. The lady deftly changed the
subject.

All this John did not see, for he sat in a half-daze minding the scene
about him; the delicate beauty of the hall, the faint perfume, the
moving myriad of men, the rich clothing and low hum of talking seemed
all a part of a world so different from his, so strangely more
beautiful than anything he had known, that he sat in dreamland, and
started when, after a hush, rose high and clear the music of
Lohengrin's swan. The infinite beauty of the wail lingered and swept
through every muscle of his frame, and put it all a-tune. He closed
his eyes and grasped the elbows of the chair, touching unwittingly the
lady's arm. And the lady drew away. A deep longing swelled in all his
heart to rise with that clear music out of the dirt and dust of that
low life that held him prisoned and befouled. If he could only live up
in the free air where birds sang and setting suns had no touch of
blood! Who had called him to be the slave and butt of all? And if he
had called, what right had he to call when a world like this lay open
before men?

Then the movement changed, and fuller, mightier harmony swelled away.
He looked thoughtfully across the hall, and wondered why the beautiful
gray-haired woman looked so listless, and what the little man could be
whispering about. He would not like to be listless and idle, he
thought, for he felt with the music the movement of power within him.
If he but had some master-work, some life-service, hard,--aye, bitter
hard, but without the cringing and sickening servility, without the
cruel hurt that hardened his heart and soul. When at last a soft
sorrow crept across the violins, there came to him the vision of a
far-off home, the great eyes of his sister, and the dark drawn face of
his mother. And his heart sank below the waters, even as the sea-sand
sinks by the shores of Altamaha, only to be lifted aloft aga