deportment towards their unenlightened
fellow-blacks, can be proved to have nothing of that cynicism which
often marks the bearing of Englishmen in an analogous case with regard
to their less favoured countrymen. The statement that a black person
can be "spoilt" for such by education, whilst he cannot be made white,
is one of the silly conceits which the worship of the skin engenders in
ill-conditioned minds. No sympathy should be wasted on the negro
sufferer from mortification at not being able to "change his skin." The
Ethiopian of whatever shade of colour who is not satisfied with being
such was never intended to be more than a mere living figure. Mr.
Froude further confidently states that whilst a superior Negro "might
do well himself," yet "his family feel their blood as a degradation."
If there be some who so feel, they are indeed very much to be pitied;
but their sentiments are not entitled to the serious importance with
which our critic has invested them. But is it at all conceivable that
a people whose sanity has never in any way been questioned would strain
every nerve to secure for their offspring a [37] distinction the
consequence of which to themselves would be a feeling of their own
abasement? The poor Irish peasant who toils and starves to secure for
his eldest son admission into the Catholic priesthood, has a far other
feeling than one of humiliation when contemplating that son eventually
as the spiritual director of a congregation and parish. Similarly, the
laudable ambition which, in the case of a humble Scotch matron, is
expressed in the wish and exertion to see her Jamie or Geordie "wag his
pow in the pou'pit," produces, when realized, salutary effects in the
whole family connection. These effects, which Mr. Froude would
doubtless allow and commend in their case, he finds it creditable to
ignore the very possibility of in the experience of people whose
cuticle is not white. It is, however, but bare justice to say that, as
Negroes are by no means deficient in self-love and the tenderness of
natural affection, such gratifying fulfilment of a family's hopes
exerts an elevating and, in many cases, an ennobling influence on every
one connected with the fortunate household. Nor, from the eminently
sympathetic nature of the African race, are the near friends of a
family [38] unbenefited in a similar way. This is true, and
distinctively human; but, naturally, no apologist of Negro depreciation
would