or yet that she should have utilized a coincidence which had the
double advantage of securing the permanent services, whilst realizing
at the same time the life's aspiration, of a distinguished British
subject. But that Mr. Froude should be dinning in our ears this case
of benefited self-interest, gaining the amplest reciprocity, both as to
service and serviceableness, with the disinterested spontaneity of
America's elevation of Mr. Douglass, is but another proof of the
obliquity of the moral medium through [143] which he is wont to survey
mankind and their concerns.

The distinction between the two marvellous careers which we have been
discussing demands, as it is susceptible of, still sharper
accentuation. In the final success of Reeves, it is the man himself
who confronts one in the unique transcendency and victoriousness of
personal merit. On the other hand, a million times the personal merit
of Reeves combined with his own could have availed Douglass absolutely
nothing in the United States, legal and social proscript that he was,
with public opinion generally on the side of the laws and usages
against him. The very little countries of the world are proverbial for
the production of very great men. But, on the other hand, narrowness
of space favours the concentration and coherence of the adverse forces
that might impede, if they fail of utterly thwarting, the success which
may happen to be grudged by those possessing the will and the power for
its obstruction. In Barbados, so far as we have heard, read, and seen
ourselves of the social ins and outs of that little sister-colony, the
operation of the above mentioned [144] influences has been, may still
be, to a certain extent, distinctly appreciable. Although in English
jurisprudence there is no law ordaining the proscription, on the ground
of race or colour, of any eligible candidate for social or political
advancement, yet is it notorious that the ethics and practices of the
"Anglo-West Indians"--who, our author has dared to say, represent the
higher type of Englishmen--have, throughout successive generations,
effectually and of course detrimentally operated, as though by a
positive Medo-Persian edict, in a proscriptive sense. It therefore
demanded extraordinary toughness of constitutional fibre, moral,
mental, and, let us add, physical too, to overcome the obstacles
opposed to the progress of merit, too often by persons in intelligence
below contempt, but, i