is to be prosecuted in future for the White
Man?"

"For the White Man," my boy, he said; "for the White Man!"

And was he not right? The noble being to whom he alluded is certainly
richly justified in a very high pitch of pride over the gratifying
fact, that his natural complexion is considerably whiter than anything
at all darker. In the abstract, my boy, it is not a positive white, and
its general hue, if characteristic of a napkin would hardly enable that
napkin to pass muster at the feast of an Apicius or a Lamia; but, as
compared with other complexions, it is properly colorless, and strikes
the eye very pleasantly when regarded by a single person in a mirror.
So highly, indeed, do many possessors of this complexion admire its
prevailing whiteness, that they perform their ablutions with an
artistic design to leave here and there certain picturesque streaks of
delicate shading, thereby causing the whiteness of the intervening
spots to appear all the more dazzling. Others, again, religiously
refrain from water outwardly as well as inwardly, for the apparent
purpose of incrusting the purity of their valuable complexion in a
protecting coat; thus preserving it from any possible bad effect of the
sun. Still others, my boy, continue to practise the thorough ablution
of the ancients, but signally succeed in throwing out the whiteness of
the level of their faces in excellent relief, by adopting measures to
implant a contrasting red on the tips of their noses. And a fourth
class, having an eye to beauties of a White background for the
exhibition of chaste neutral tints, incur the frequent freckle and the
graceful pimple with great judgment and taste.

Considering the character of the White face with due profundity of
thought, my boy, I am led to regard it as a canvas, expressly intended
by nature to receive quick and vivid paintings of all the virtues; and
so nicely adapted to the least of humanity's desires, that the woman
who has no virtues to limn themselves thereon, may yet paint it to suit
herself.

This cannot be said of the Black skin, my boy. Upon that the beautiful
virtue of Modesty cannot paint itself in a blush when its owner is
detected in the act of taking a bribe; nor is it susceptible of that
beautiful sunset-tint which the genial merit of being able to punish
four bottles at a sitting delights to leave upon a face of Caucasian
extraction. It is even incapable of receiving those exquisite
sub-ocular shad