and with all the decorum that care and
affection can give; exquisitely beautiful, graceful, gentle, and
amiable, these are not admitted, nay, are not on any terms
admissable, into the society of the Creole families of Louisiana.
They cannot marry; that is to say, no ceremony can render an
union with them legal or binding; yet such is the powerful effect
of their very peculiar grace, beauty, and sweetness of manner,
that unfortunately they perpetually become the objects of choice
and affection. If the Creole ladies have privilege to exercise
the awful power of repulsion, the gentle Quadroon has the sweet
but dangerous vengeance of possessing that of attraction. The
unions formed with this unfortunate race are said to be often
lasting and happy, as far as any unions can be so, to which a
certain degree of disgrace is attached.

There is a French and an English theatre in the town; but we were
too fresh from Europe to care much for either; or, indeed, for
any other of the town delights of this city, and we soon became
eager to commence our voyage up the Mississippi.

Miss Wright, then less known (though the author of more than one
clever volume) than she has since become, was the companion of
our voyage from Europe; and it was my purpose to have passed some
months with her and her sister at the estate she had purchased in
Tennessee. This lady, since become so celebrated as the advocate
of opinions that make millions shudder, and some half-score
admire, was, at the time of my leaving England with her,
dedicated to a pursuit widely different from her subsequent
occupations. Instead of becoming a public orator in every town
throughout America, she was about, as she said, to seclude
herself for life in the deepest forests of the western world,
that her fortune, her time, and her talents might be exclusively
devoted to aid the cause of the suffering Africans. Her first
object was to shew that nature had made no difference between
blacks and whites, excepting in complexion; and this she expected
to prove by giving an education perfectly equal to a class of
black and white children. Could this fact be once fully
established, she conceived that the Negro cause would stand on
firmer ground than it had yet done, and the degraded rank which
they have ever held amongst civilized nations would be proved to
be a gross injustice.

This question of the mental equality, or inequality between us,
and the Negro race, is one of gr